a wayward line

2003-02-05T17:24:00.000-05:00

Waxneck: no, we fucked something up
Waxneck: you mean, today?
analysis dont: all of it
Waxneck: not today, cause we're dumb
analysis dont: why
Waxneck: hey, just buy us a van and shut up already
analysis dont: i dont have any money
Waxneck: steal us one, then
Waxneck: i heard you were playing in the firebombed car, and you're professor saw you
analysis dont: yeah
analysis dont: it was...well
analysis dont: i cant think of proper terms to describe it

2002-07-27T00:22:00.000-04:00

2002-07-27T00:15:00.000-04:00

2002-07-13T01:41:00.000-04:00

People I work with.

Jen: We're on a more personal basis, which I guess I lord over the other newer employees, subconciously. They're thinking "this kid has been gone for years, just waltzes in and now he's taking smoke breaks with her while we have to work nonstop?" At least that's what I think they're saying. She recently got married to this guy that I used to nervously talk music with at the record store when I was 14 and trying to figure out which Pavement record was the best to buy.

Dan: Back in the day, he had this menacing head of long red hair, which suddenly disappeared and became a bare scalp, with a visible receding hairline. So we are generally thinking "wig". He seems to revel in embodying all of the sci-fi dork cliches, like quoting something in a weird voice, then citing the specific episode of the TV show I've never heard of that it came from. And he has this way of disagreeing with you at all times, even when you are agreeing.

Monica: Has this distance to her that is very appealing. She mentioned living in the Czech Republic for a year, and something about running into a drug problem there. She's moving to Maine with her boyfriend in a few months.

Garrett: The owner's nephew, on a short leash. Probably only 21 or 22, but everyone is on pins and needles around him because of his ties to the authority. I heard he made out with Allison, who used to work here, last summer. It was a big controversy, I'm told.

Amanda: Around my age, really nervous a lot of the time. The one notable thing about her is that when she laughs, I mean like hysterically laughs, she does it almost silently. You can't even tell she's laughing. It looks more like shes vaguely shivering. But she doesn't laugh often enough for it to be a remarkable aspect of her overall personality.

Ron: I kinda remember going to high school with him. Actually come to think of it, I've been in his bedroom. It has about 5 synthesizers set up, a few computers and samplers, and cords running everywhere.

Lauren: Recently admitted to stalking Dan on the internet, because she thinks he's so weird. Her and a friend pretended to be "goth" girls from our town and hit on him in a chat room. She often talks to me in funny accents, which is endearing and awkward.

Mark: For years Mark, mildly mentally disabled, would come into the store and hang out in the cafe. He even had his own coffee mug that he would use every day, in lieu of paying for a cup. Apparently, while I was gone, we hired him to do odd jobs. Basically he just walks around talking to customers about movies. His signature line is: "It was better than Total Recall."

Shilough: Kind of guy who makes me believe in predestination. Looks more or less like Harry Potter, dresses impeccably, carries himself with utmost grace, listens to a lot of brit-pop and bluegrass, and plays in a band that appears to weave those two sounds together. Somehow I see him having all of these qualities when he was 4. Like, listening to Spacemen 3 and reading C.S. Lewis in the cradle.

2002-06-28T15:07:00.000-04:00

Lines:

I was waiting to order pizza, standing behind a woman who looked anxious enough to be next. I don't think she was sufficiently certain that she was next, fidgeting and casting accusatory glances at another woman who encroached upon the perimeter of the counter, closer to the "pick-up" sign. A younger couple began conversing behind me, the woman telling the man that she had begun to keep track of her monthly finances. "I'm pretty sure most of it goes to cigarettes," she said with palpable satisfaction, a clear indicator that this was the conversation of two co-workers vaguely uncomfortable with eachother on a personal basis, probably sent down by a manager upstairs to order food for the office. Their discussion shifted to another vice which both had, undoubtedly and silently, agreed upon to be their lone common ground. "I saw this centerfold-type ad in a Maxim or something," the woman said, "and it showed a bottle of Corona on the beach, without the cap on, and the caption said 'oops, I lost my top,' it was hilarious." The man laughed. "Seriously, I laughed so hard. I wanted to take it and laminate it or something." The girl behind the counter was exasperated with a man who wanted to switch from french bread to NY-style thin crust, and shot me repeated glances punctuated with a roll of the eyes. I secretly hoped that she would end up waiting on me, rather than the other guy, so that she might find a temporary place to vent the frustrations of what must have been a long day at the pizza counter. Instead, I got the other guy.

At the CVS, I stood in a long line holding a popsicle. There were two open registers but one line, which began halfway down the center aisle, by the seasonal toys and 12-packs of Big Red, then split at the registers. This is a rarity in small supermarkets, empirical logic and spatial unity dictating the actions of a toiletry-clutching mob. Despite this efficency, the line moved slow. The man behind me reached for his ringing cellular phone. "Yeah....I'm in line, at CVS. I've been standing here for 10 minutes and I haven't gone anywhere." His angst rang through the store like tolling bells. "I'll call you back when I'm out of here." As I stood at the precipice of the line, I noticed a middle aged woman darting around the counter area, looking charged and frantic, clutching what from a passing glance confirmed to be some sort of emergency feminine product. I identified her urgency, and thought I might let her in front of me, even with the man behind me chomping at the bit. Instead, she walked to the register farthest from the line, and stood behind the woman being rung up. Mumblings of agitation became shouts of anger as she walked to the counter when the previous woman was finished. "Hey, there's obviously a line here," cell-phone man said. "Well why wasn't there a line over here?" emergency product woman shot back. Somehow she had a point, arguing against the odd logic and harmony in favor of the typical jumbled disorder. The rest of the store went quiet. "She can go ahead of me," I uttered, trying to defuse the situation, "I'm just getting this popsicle." Cell-phone man looked nonplussed by the gesture. Then, another woman walked to get in line behind emergency product woman. "Why don't you guys get off her back?" she blasted, in sisterly solidarity. "It's just a line. Seriously, why is everyone being so mean?" This galvanized the conflict. We were being mean, all of us. Quiet conversation resumed, as cell-phone man issued a final, muttered salvo. "Sure, we're being mean, but you get the benefits." I walked outside and ate my popsicle, watching the various players in the drama dispersing into the night. The joke on my popsicle stick read: "What does a skunk use to call home? A smell-ular phone!"

2002-06-25T16:54:00.000-04:00

Knock.

"Yeah?"

"Oh, I'm just looking for if anyone here plays golf."

"No."

"Thanks."

2002-06-20T13:26:00.000-04:00

They'll never know its me. At the press conference I will take the podium and tell some rambling spiel about my father her grandfather and my mother her grandmother, about how resourceful they were during the Depression and how that moral character has manifested itself in my genes, too. They passed it onto me. I couldn't be the one, I don't fit the profile. I had good parents. She has a good uncle. I'll go before the reporters and say that and smile a lot, and they wont mind cutting away from the president's speech to let me say my piece. They will never know its me.

2002-06-13T11:57:00.000-04:00

One of the words I could go around all day saying is oaxaca. Seriously. It's like that feeling you get when you wash your windshield at the gas station, or when you put on shoes that fit really well. Wa-hacka. And it looks like a beach, the word itself. There is sand and blue water, and someone has one of those big umbrellas in the distance. This is Oaxaca. They are sitting there under the umbrella, writing someone a postcard. They are writing really big and trying to get to the bottom as quick as possible so they don't have to say "I wish I was somewhere else."

Yesterday at the restaurant I ordered aguacate. Which is avocado. Guacamole is a word I like to say often. It has body and dignity. But aguacate is even more satisfying.

Something else is czech new wave. The more we sit here in silence the louder the computer hums. Reverse disco.

2002-06-10T01:16:00.000-04:00

You said I knew this guy, he made a point of not finishing his sentences. When you told him you understood, and tried one of your. He said Exac.

One day he woke up and forgot his bathroom sink habits. He completely didn't know what to do in there. There was a lot of groping and for a moment his retinas looked like depthless pools of ink.

This was sickening. He and I want to live a life out of context. But how are we supposed to do that when he's so there, and I'm so here.

That's something I'm just going to keep putting off for a long.

2002-06-07T13:33:00.000-04:00

I can't figure out if the people I work with are in love. One time, she called the office from some remote location, looking for him. He and I have similar voices, people are always joking about it, and so she got us mixed up and started talking romantically, asking something about Dante's Inferno. Before I could interrupt her she had said she loved me. I hung up.

And the tension is there. Sometimes she wears ear plugs to drown it all out. The TV is talking about some girl taken from her bedroom at gunpoint, her father walking through the desert for hours, and the President cracking jokes; so she wears earplugs. So what if the President is in love, she says, it's all for the cameras.

But they argue, which I'm told is the telltale sign. She wants to know if he wants to sit on the wing, or at the rear, or at the front of the plane flying to some place she doesnt want to go, in California, to see some people speak who she doesnt want to hear. They snap at eachother. These prices are going to go up any minute now.

She's catalogued his idiosyncrasies even further than I have, seems exhausted with them. She works in the neutered language of politicos and pundits, which crowds out whatever one might consider the language of love. How I find the way to relate to anyone in a world like this is puzzling.

2002-06-06T18:05:00.000-04:00

We walked past another fire truck and I thought how even in the torrential rain the city was managing to find ways to burn. It didn't really come out that way, but later you said you were thinking the same thing. I'd been making notes to myself all day, every time I heard a siren. It would come over my shoulder at intersections and block out the sound of your voice for a few seconds.

We squatted on the sidewalk and watched the truck idling. I wasn't going to sit anymore because I'd sat on the bench in the circle a few minutes before. You said, Don't sit there, it's wet. But I did anyway and got soaked. You were still laughing a bit, watching me squat. The truck wasn't going anywhere but the sirens and lights were still activated. You decided that this wasn't exciting enough to watch anymore, nothing was going to burn, and I said that I had been thinking the same thing.

On the way back home, I overheard a man on a cell phone talking about how he'd given up on using garbage cans, and was just throwing all of his trash down the compactor in his sink. I don't think you were listening. There was police tape blocking off the street up ahead and you wanted us to go see what was up.

2002-06-05T17:17:00.000-04:00

I've been known to talk to mirrors in public bathrooms when drunk. I say things like "ok, Evan, pull yourself together," or "ok, you're doing fine." This, of course, is said without the slightest bit of irony, given the fact that no one else is present. These are actual statements and notions that I feel like reiterating, to myself, in order to maintain some kind of mental stability.

Often, if I return to the bathroom after having been there before, I will greet myself in the mirror as if I am a close associate with whom I haven't been able to speak confidentially since my last visit. I speak to myself as someone who knows certain details of an unfolding situation but remains unappraised of any events that have occurred since I last went into the bathroom. "Wow, what is his fucking problem?" might be something I say. "Did you see that?"

Usually I won't leave the bathroom until I have reached some conclusion with the mirror self. This can get heated, and sometimes I worry that people can hear me, waiting in line outside to pee. I walk out and I feel crowded, as if I am exiting as two people. This is something I have to keep to myself, in terms of my personal demeanor, because I don't know how I would explain it to anyone.

2002-06-04T14:15:00.000-04:00

On Wednesday I hobbled down the street in the heat, ordered Mexican beer and complained of a headache. At 5 pm Thursday I awoke, drenched in sweat and fumbled at the pages of the memoirs of a woman who I cannot determine to be alive or dead. On Friday I found myself in a train station with a bag of candy, a fistful of cigarettes and no grasp of cardinal direction. On Saturday night, someone told me about a guy with a wrinkled afro and an internet scam. On Sunday I rode from end to end on the regional rail and tried not to watch two lovers nuzzling eachothers necks.

Today for the first time ever in this room I can hear people sneezing through the walls. Loud and passioned sneezes, violent expulsions of matter. It's hard to say whether they are next door, like neighbors, or upstairs, or below us, or maybe out in the invisible courtyard that floats above the sale racks. I've never heard them sneeze like this before. They must be new.

2002-05-30T11:06:00.000-04:00

I am sitting in the alley, facing a brick wall crept in ivy and brushed past by stray cats. Fences and weeds have sprung up around the path I crouch on, holding a cigarette. There is a considerable din coming from the inside. The low treble of a thrash record, someone arguing on the phone, two girls dancing on eachothers toes. I pick at the bandage on my foot and think, "there is no way to escape this".

In the hospital, I am called Andrew, and scowled at by men in smocks. With slow hesitation I am regurgitated through the care facility, the system, the winding paths of forms and declarations. In the waiting room, the wheelchair bound bray aloud at the intercom each time it fails to call their name. Frail men in tight clothes sit before TVs with fake judges who criticize the financially incompetent. I sit and laugh, waiting for my turn to see the man who will tell me I am alright to go back outside and continue filling the world with useless information.

2002-05-19T16:27:00.000-04:00

Dear Sonia,

Looks like I was wrong about the star-thing. It's just that I heard a voice, you know, someone shouting from the other room over the music. I panicked and threw everything out the window. Talked with G. about getting your bags back, but he wouldn't stop rolling his eyes and uttering banalities. Did you hear from him? He said he would call but you know how that goes. I think he's been cut off. Something about crackles and pretty. It's a long way to travel, sound I mean, across all that water. We should give him the benefit of the doubt. I remember you were telling me that, where was it? My toes kept getting stuck between the cobblestones. That makes it mediterranean, somehow. You said we need to savor this. Wait on it, like the saltwater. Look, all this punctuation has me starving for some open expanses. Respond when you are ready to join me.

Fondly,

Evan

2002-05-17T13:43:00.000-04:00

I'm counting the pothole rattles as a city bus passes by, draped in a sash reading "Training Vehicle". A woman stands adjacent, reciting passages from a stocky true crime novel between drags of a cigarette. The text of a letter begins to take shape in my head.
"At first I meant to take offense at your notations," I mentally transcribe, hesitating at the choice and placement of the word "notations".
Then it crystallizes: I have nothing to gain in propping up another stale explanation to save face for this miniscule fraction of academia. I decide to leave it behind and go for something shocking.
"Instead, I should thank you. That you picked out these sentences as alien and unfamiliar should instead speak to the undeniable fact that the rest of the work was pure pablum. A slurred collection of useless language julienned into paragraphs. I honor you for even attempting to endure it with civility. I will leave you alone now. Please don't ever stop wearing all black."

2002-05-15T17:54:00.000-04:00

I'm compelled lately to write poetry. I don't know how, generally, to do that. Yesterday, however, I sat there perched on the couch under glass going spotted with dashes of blown rain, and a book of Brautigan in my lap, thinking of how it makes sense to think in haikus. Celebrity actors do it, and get their little semantic twists published in gold boxes stashed in the corners of magazines. Gently trimmed articulations of an attention deficient brain. Poems, too, tiny executions like sex acts. There's something humbling in the forced economy of the poem, even if I don't know how to go about finding it. Friends and friends of friends win awards and thrill panels with these things, but I'm stuck with false accusations. I pretend to wake up with them, maybe clipping a phrase tellingly by opening my eyes a second early. I even told someone about a phantasm that recited one to me, repeating it like a mantra while seated on my chest. But that was bullshit too.

2002-05-14T11:42:00.000-04:00

You look familiar, you sat up and over in statistics class. You look familiar, you, we exchanged glances for years in the hall. You, with that face, you thought you were my enemy for days upon days. You, in the chair, you reminded me that some people smile alone on the street like they are posing for an imaginary picture. You are all here now, in the smoke, smiling and reminding yourselves. You are all shouting in a language that I have forgotten; you bellow and the sounds are cavernous and round but indistinguishable. You touch my hand and the dull facts pour out like chemicals.

We are forgotten in a handful of pictures I failed to smile for.

2002-05-12T13:22:00.000-04:00

Caught in the middle of what was a terrible situation. You have not made a mess of things. You probably think before returning upstairs. I recently discovered made a mess of things. You are caught in the middle. I recently discovered plans were. Let me apologize. Let me probably do not. Plans were made a mess of things. You know what I am all about. Being together indefinitely get it out of the way. This may explain. I understand this may explain some of the confusion on my part. Returning upstairs I understand what was a terrible situation. Indefinitely. You are caught in the middle. It was no fault in the middle of what was what makes you who you are. You most probably do not. You or what makes you. You have an online poetry site, you have not half the looks of me.

2002-05-07T13:45:00.000-04:00

Words eject from me, wander around and make their way back.
The first instance is I'm sitting at a wobbly table, looking just above a right eye, aiming at an eyebrow. At some point here the words you-know-me-and-my-saving-the-world-complex appear, in the air. I say them amidst smoke and that choking silence we all know. They seem to drift, atomize and vanish. I go on without them, not feeling any lighter. They weigh on me from a distance.
Now in the drizzle and sweat of the sidewalk I am spotted by two faces behind a slogan-draped booth. They look cleaned out and reprogrammed, wearing smiles composed of nights sleeping with pamphlets and commission checks stamped in a dusty office. "This guy has time to save the world." The words rise from the pair, male and female inflection combining.
How did those words come back to me? I look at my watch and it is a mirror, flecked with drops of rain.

2002-04-30T17:26:00.000-04:00

This site will take a time out while I temporarily go insane. Just like the sky starts to remember that it is summer, I have to remember to keep track of my words. Proper detectives will figure out ways to keep tabs on me. Feel free to pick dandelions. Don't ask me where I'm going.

2002-04-26T14:33:00.000-04:00

Twenty years are condensed into a walk home.There are no fadeouts or jumpcuts, it's all a fluid rush of remembrance. Some of it is tactile: the broken concrete becomes linoleum hexagons like little highway offramps for Hot Wheels, but only for a second, before it shifts into thick red clay. All of this is between steps.

Each face I register lodges a question, an eternal panel of Q&A.

"How many questions would you say you answer truthfully, in a day?"
"Why did you think it was right to try and kiss Consuela?"
"Are you chewing that or just swallowing it?"
"Are you a Customer Club Care Card member?"
"When was the last time you changed your socks?"
"Do you think she really wanted you to call her back?"

These don't get answered. Thirty seven percent of them are rhetorical, or just vectors of language never meant to be translated.

I'm following and being followed by what someone decided to call the human race. Some for blocks. Others eclipse my path and hail cabs. Cars bump below my knees, inflicting a pain I can't precisely locate, aside from it being somewhere below my knee and above my ankle. Everything is connected and I can't figure out why.

2002-04-25T16:30:00.000-04:00

The panic fell around me like a blanket. I wasn't sure what brought it on, but there I was, feeling something cave in. I don't want to say I left my body. My internal organs abandoned their places, jogged. A generic riot in the senses; an insurrection.

Just before, I had been on the street, lending a woman a cigarette. This is sobering me up, she said. Or maybe it isn't. I dont know. I don't know if I wanted to be sobered up. I kind of like going through my life like this. Where are you going? I asked her. To Austin, this is my last hurrah, she replied.

I don't know exactly when but somewhere there things slipped away. This woman lost or trying to be or maybe just carrying boxes down the street innocently. I walked the rest of the way home with my hands out, a little. Trying to feel my way back.

I looked for some comfort in a book and it said "people are starting to realize that reality totally sucks". The words weren't real but pulsed around my eyelids with a weight. Then came the voices, which I knew weren't there but recoiled from anyway. They occupied various spaces in my periphery, nebulae of terrible moanings. I ducked them all and shuddered on the bed, fetal, for several minutes.

Then it all cleared, like an exorcism. All the spirits left and I sat up and felt weightless again. No clocks had stopped and the faucets didn't run with mud.

2002-04-24T22:26:00.000-04:00

My father is worn down by the world. His eyes tell me, subcapillaries lacing through a film of tears; the deep sighs tell me, with him staring off over my shoulder and over twenty years of me. The corporate culture has gotten to him, he admits. Some multinational is stepping in and undoing years of work, networking, buddy buddy, putting you on speakerphone as I hit the toll booth at New Paltz, work. All for greed, and he admits it.
I watch him sip his coffee and watch his eyes tremble. It makes me want to cry, him looking so lost. And I forgot the cold sweat. He says he wakes up in a cold sweat, plotting. He wakes up plotting how he will get out of it, break out and find some lateral movement, or whatever the jargon is. Carve some new territory. I'm trying to follow him. My habit of completing the other person's sentences rears up; I'm trying to trace his footsteps.
So, maybe you'll have to start over? I say.
Yeah, him staring into his coffee.
Again.
Yeah, again.

2002-04-23T23:55:00.000-04:00

You felt burned at the tips, hollowed out, shifting the weight of your chin in between the knuckles of your fist. He looked like he wanted to forget it ever happened. We all did, I guess. That was the nature of these things. We wanted to blur the image and refocus and have you gone, silly to even call you a shadow. I personally only had a handful of memories that needed to be run through: you stepping off the curb outside the doctor's office with a nervous wind in your scarf; you and some others on a sailboat, struggling with the riggings; you teaching me to snap; maybe a picture or two in an envelope somewhere, your eyes red and absent, no words. Everything else had been chopped up, ground into bits and anthologized to be thrown away.

Counting days by phone calls, rounding up. This is how we would forget you.

2002-04-21T23:32:00.000-04:00

I'm not sure what drove me to say it, to advance on the distant hunch I had, that she looked somehow familiar. The troughs of rainwater in her eyes kept me from talking politics, or saying much of anything. The strange magnetism that develops between intrigued strangers had begun to lock in, and we wandered with the crowd towards the Capitol. Where are we going? Shouldn't we have stopped at the Mall? I kept muttering, but it might as well have been smoke. The armed guards told us to stay to the left of the yellow line, to keep our drifting mass in some sort of containment. She laughed at that, dancing on the strip of raised yellow paint, tip toeing into the forbidden territory. Surrounded by flag waving defenders of a homeland, whispers of passion and shouts for jihad, we floated in forgetting and anxious glances.

Marching, chanting tends to wear on me. I leave the mass feeling an emptiness cloaked in iterations of guilt. But that afternoon I felt absolved, or dissolved. There's a plane we escape to, at times, where terminology and borders and anger all wears thin, turns to face you and is invisible.

2002-04-18T16:08:00.000-04:00

Soon the streets will be blocked off like closed arteries. The heat comes from below, the names in the sidewalk send up fumes that pollute me. Naturally we're sent in different directions. There the ranter stands next to the rolling crowds of prospective students, gripping a sign with misspellings. His shirt is off, of course, due to the heat. We are all victims, he says, or we all will be. His tone is conversational, with no one there to receive it.

"He's not crazy," I say to a friend. "He just looks like it."
__

Across the street I look for the shade, some safety in the dark angles that cut across air. More voices with pamphlets. Want to see rivers of water turn into rivers of blood? the woman asks passersby, summoning a relish from a shriveled cynical core. Did you hear they're going to roast Sharon? she asks another girl, who spits and claims her undying support for him, a rage that trails off towards the pretzel booth. I stare at her in wonder and she smiles at me, as if we have made a connection, an agreement that the rest of the human race is just doomed to misinterpret her humor.
__

If I stop blinking everything will be in flames. Water collects in the lips of my eyes. We're going to try to keep this peaceful.

2002-04-18T01:30:00.000-04:00

2002-04-17T01:26:00.000-04:00

She said someone might die soon. "I don't know anyone that's dead, you know?" I had to agree. This after her telling me that maybe history is just a cold thing, a series of plights and sufferings, and what can we do about them? We can't get emotional. Then she mumbled something about intellectuals as a drunken man stumbled into her path, balancing on one foot. She shoved him aside and chuckled at her forthrightness.

How do you know if someone is dead, she asked through the bars of the gate. I haven't heard from him in over a year, and the last thing we argued about was him shooting heroin. I feel like he might be dead.

I told her they don't write obituaries for overdoses. We are left to fill in the rest of the story on our own, at whatever distance.

We left it at that.

2002-04-16T17:55:00.000-04:00

-It will soon become impossible to maintain autonomous cultural communities unless they interact with eachother via the routes that have been commandeered by capitalism. The internet is not itself capitalism, it has been hijacked by capitalism.

-Ignore the fact that Toyotas are made in the US and sold as Japanese cars with a transnational aesthetic, and the fact that Fords are made entirely outside of the US yet marketed as "the American car." Thinking of nations and states in terms of the companies they may or may not contain is like, well, I don't know what its like but don't do it.

-Mike caught the bug and accidentally dropped in in the toilet on his way to the door.

-Every time you consume a piece of culture from a distant community, ask yourself if it came too easy.

-This has nothing to do with The Matrix, or the matrix, or the fact that you kinda knew about the matrix before you saw The Matrix and after you saw it everything made sense, in that it didn't make any sense, and that was the point.

2002-04-15T17:11:00.000-04:00

1. I hope you got money on you.
2. Oh, your daily routine.
3. Don't take all of that personally.
4. Just what's coming to you?
5. Am I responsible for waking you up?
6. I'm going to ask him: "What's a penis?"
7. There goes a fire truck.
8. Wipe that smile off your face.
9. I am going to explode.
10. That's not how I want to find out about your life.

He's in poor health. I'm taking care of the paperwork. Where's the guy who's here everyday and I don't know, I haven't seen him!

2002-04-15T02:23:00.000-04:00

In St. Louis we went out of our way to ride the moving sidewalk as much as possible. My sister wasn't scared and I certainly didn't need any chaperon but there they were, switching off like a tag team, meeting us at the gate and moving sidewalk to the room where I huddled in the corner with my cheap walkman. There were other children there, flying alone, escorted across the country by client mothers with frilly collars and heavy rouge. My eyes had a haze that made everyone look elderly, the immobile and infirm that sink to the bottom in airports.

In Houston I stared at the covers of Time and Business Week in the dead end terminal.

In Los Angeles we tried to pay a cab to take us the wrong way. They enforce tips and don't tell you where to go.

Chicago was a sandwich. At times I think back to the moment there and remember only the sandwich, and briefly forget whether I was in Chicago or simply in a restaurant themed to make me feel that I was. The sandwich had mushrooms and the air was vacant.

Amarillo was cowboy boots and a crowd of boys labeling themselves as terminally misbehaving, riding the skies for the first time and flirting with the stewardesses. At some point we were all up in the air, lives on pause, breathing eachother in.

2002-04-12T16:12:00.000-04:00

Last night's lucid dream put me somewhere between the canoe accident, my first memory with all that swallowed water, and the street Michael Willett lived on in Nacogdoches, Texas. It was a few blocks from mine, looking at a map now, probably Pecan St. That street was the church parking lot with bikes, and staying up all night with ordered pizza, Guns n' Roses on the headphones underneath blankets. His mom down the hall raised him alone and let him do whatever he wanted, especially when it came to buying Guns n' Roses tapes and the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. Welcome to the jungle; Elle Macpherson buying fruit in a flowery sarong.

We ended up in the convenience store pocketing Jolly Ranchers, an eye or two towards the register, feeling stealth in our bowels. It was a whirlwind until I found myself in the bathroom at his house, listening to the muffled phone conversation of his mother and the store manager, she denying something. I fumbled at the sticky gland surrounding the candy, trying to make myself want to eat it and wondering why I had chosen lemon in the first place. The wrapper went down after two flushes and in moments I was lying to my mother with lemon on my tongue.

I don't remember what flavor Michael picked and I want to find him so that I can ask.

2002-04-11T16:56:00.000-04:00

I received some envelopes and papers in the mail from my father, instructions on filing, to fill in some numbers, sign near the X, and to fold these papers lengthwise three times and to lick the envelopes that have the taste of burned flesh, and to seal all of that away and mail it with appropriate postage so that I might pay the taxes, a portion of which would be dedicated, earmarked, they call it, for the purchase of a gun somewhere that could shoot an unarmed mother in the head. I don't know who would pull the trigger and I don't know where the gun would come from but I know that probably that the mother is also a sister, and maybe a daughter, as well. Sign three times, here, here and here, oh and social security here, tear this off here and fold and lick and someone will pull the trigger somewhere and shoot her as she darts across the square, what was it, for bread? It's always for bread. Fill in the oval completely and we will shoot for bread.

Tax resisters are called "crooks" right now on television. The IRS office sounds like gunfire. Round up to the nearest full dollar. No decimals.

2002-04-09T17:26:00.000-04:00

Tall woman with skinny cigarette, I saw you bury your half-smoked stub in the gravel after you watched me light that homeless man's burnt-out cigar. He came near you, didn't he, to root through the ashtray for the leftover smokes. It was a little play we were all in, the three of us. He was dressed well, hair combed and parted to the left, double-breasted sport jacket, some wrinkles, over a black shirt and trousers. But underneath, red leathered skin, and a shriveled gait that exhaled as he crouched down by the ashtray. He lit the stubs in succession, linking the histories of eight or nine mouths with hardened fingers.

You stared upward, watching the water pool on the glass overhang, let go of some of whatever that is once it comes out of your lungs, and bent to place the stub in the pan. I watched you hesitate and return, pushing it all the way in, even touching the gravel. That hideous chemical dirt that mingles with the leftovers of our international frustration.

I saw you then walking inside, leaving us on stage to converse with the rain.

2002-04-07T21:27:00.000-04:00

For a minute or two, a cigarette lives, even breathes. Then we step on it and argue terms of what are more or less misunderstandings. Someone was continually standing over there, over my right shoulder, and every so often others to my left would refer to her as someone who was unwanted, a dim plague. I never saw her face but she threw off our conversation, our trying to find a hotel to crash or drive to or a bed to sleep in, two to a pillow. Her name had a consonance to it but now its a staticky hiccup.

So I took refuge in sitting amidst the folded cafeteria tables. A band playing to a crowd of questionable excitability. A crowd that dulled me to the science of reading faces. I made the repeated mistake of scouring each for a familiar name until someone grabbed my arm as we passed. Turning to face him, he was already apologizing. "Sorry, you looked like someone I know." His tone and my wordless agreement both resonated with the knowledge that it was bound to happen in a place like this, and we are all constantly avoiding it. Don't we all look familiar enough? With our dirty hair and dirt like badges, our veils of discomfort. Don't we all look like reminders? I thought I recognized him too.

Is it yesterday or today? I'm lost in the aggregate of our demands.

2002-04-04T16:30:00.000-05:00

The indie rock show is a constant room full of heads and smoke. We all take our varying paths but end up in that room, as strangers, night after night, trying to catch eachother off guard. Everything is meant to be overheard or peered at down a shoulder. "I'd take your arm and fling it over the power lines." "Are you raping me? Because I've lost all feeling." "Me and her could play Tom Sawyer." Not a word of it makes any sense.

We are the results of a study on display, a science of intentions. She's leaning on the stage, dabbing at her nose and sniffing hard between glances at me. Trying to make me think she has just snorted coke, or trying to make herself think she has, or trying to make herself think that she has made me think that she has snorted coke. I scowl. This guy over here has a funny hat on, one of those russian numbers with the ear flaps, primarily so he could walk in with it and remind everyone that "yes, I am permitted to wear this hat and the rest of you forgot and now you are kicking yourselves." A group passes a bottle of wine, making me say "I was permitted to bring wine and I forgot and now I am kicking myself."

The band begins its warped tune-burping and we all turn to face them. They are all looking for an E. 75% of the conversation is "have you heard these guys?" This statement, or a variation, repeated over and over instantaneously like satellites in synchronization. When they start playing I immediately begin worrying. Will I remember this? I try to make it stay in front of me, to fix it somewhere away from my brain. We can't all focus, there are maybe 200 of us here. We are all staring and nudging eachother, shifting weight like nervous grinding teeth. Will we remember this? Gradually our worrying blends, and we become a tender, undulating heart.

2002-04-02T17:09:00.000-05:00

April Fools Day came and went, bringing nothing entirely unexpected. A tobacco company trotted out its donkey painted as a zebra, pretending to manufacture an advertisement advertising the pretend manufacturing of a cigarette that won't kill you or anyone else. In the end you didn't feel had, you just felt like a sucker for even watching it in the first place.

We still have time to be April fools.

Around 10 years ago, a cellular phone started ringing, and God heard it and tried to turn it off. It was God's cellular phone. He was in a meeting, falling asleep, when it went off. It must have rang four times before he could find it in the folds of his robe. Pretty embarassing, God thought, I should change it to something like "Paradise by the Dashboard Light".

But the sound of those rings descended from the heavens at supersonic speeds. Layers of atmosphere filtered the tones; rings of dirt surrounding Earth slowed them down, colossal sine waves larger than mountain ranges. It wasn't a binary code, like most electronic emissions (this isn't verified), but a sort of aural friction, turning everything unstable into liquid. This happened primarily in human brains. In complete, slow motion, though. The instant of liquefaction drawn out over a few weeks, while the victim complained occaisionally of a buzzing sensation but absently attributed it to a loud car stereo system outside somewhere.

God looked down and saw what his cellular phone had done to so many people, all of them peculiarly American. Shit, God said, liquified brains.

2002-03-31T12:23:00.000-05:00

Restaurants, eateries, food establishments seem to work like modernized fiefdoms. Eager workers keeping up their enthusiasm, but always falling short of the expectations of the hovering lord, not wearing an apron, barking words of vague suggestion. "You might stand over there, at that station, and let Carla work this one. Then don't you think you might both get more done instead of being in eachother's way?" Moments after sitting down with my sandwich, he is upon me, asking how it tastes and wiping the crumbs from near my plate. Later, just as I am swallowing the last bite, he swoops in again to take my plate and dab at the crumbs underneath. "Everything OK?" I look over at the man next to me, also eating alone. We exchange eye-driven expressions that seem to join in saying "this guy is a nut." An aproned girl walks up a bit later to further dab at the crumbs lying near us, and the man speaks to her in Spanish. I don't know Spanish, but the intonation and gestures indicate the following: "Is your boss completely crazy?" "Yes, I am leaving in 3 weeks." I look at him again and receive no glance of confirmation.

Places like this are selling us someone else's expectation. Someone somewhere dreamed up the idea that humans didn't just want to eat sandwiches, they wanted to be transported to a pre-war, wood-paneled saloon with slogans painted on the walls and milk and ice cream dressed up and frosted over, a purported medium for innocence and tradition. Someone somewhere decided that humans needed relief from the cold confines of the modern kitchen, that it would be possible to reclaim a narrative by eating off a menu that nods to Bonnie and Clyde with its chili.

When you can eat the same sandwich on K Street and in the Chicago airport, you know that where you are doesn't so much matter anymore.

2002-03-29T16:56:00.000-05:00

She had some exams that were bothering her, just a few left before she could graduate. Calculus meant so little to her and to me when she looked into my eyes. Our legs tangled as we sat on the couch, she rifling through some notes, me watching her hair. It's really important that she gets this out of the way before we get married, before our new life. She wanted to be respectable. Her father wasn't giving her much grief about it, but she wanted to please him nonetheless. Most of her friends dropped out, and they laughed at her as she hit the books night after night. I just sat and watch her hair, falling into her eyes and laying there.

But today there was some commotion on TV, and people were outside in the streets clapping. Ayat had gone to Jerusalem and blown herself up. She is gone and I am still here.

2002-03-28T17:08:00.000-05:00

The way they all kept joking with eachother, it was hard to tell when they were being serious, if ever. That's why when she deadpanned; "well, I'm christian," and everyone else laughed, it was hard to believe her. But then she told me about reading the bible and going to a group called Jews for Jesus. "They focus entirely on the New Testament," she explained, "which is good because the New Testament is the good part." Later she corroborated the story by getting mad at me when I made a derogatory comment about Easter. She wasn't always Christian, though, she was raised Catholic. "I'm a bad Christian. I smoke and I cuss."
______________

Every day on my way to work I walk past the White House and everyone is documenting it. A frenzy of cameras, instants clutched by girls with barrettes, digitals held by young couples embracing, bulky VHS types hefted over the shoulders of Mediterranean tourists. I have never once seen the building move or do anything worth recording for any level of posterity, but there they are, day after day, despite the weather, cameras. Sad rain falling on the roof of our beloved leader, and here we are to take a picture and get wet doing it. Sun glaring down at the etched marble walk, making us feel miserable and you aren't even here. You are in El Salvador or something, palling around. I make my way through this, wading and sidestepping. Some days are harder than others, more dense. People enthralled in the apex of their tourist-ness, buzzing around a fenced-in hive, stopping only long enough to take group pictures, even though everyone in the back row has their head turned, wondering are those really snipers up there, with real guns?

I am convinced they follow my path each day, those snipers. It's a logical conclusion. It is only one of the ways that I feel marked.

2002-03-26T15:15:00.000-05:00

I made a list. Packages to mail, articles to track down, checks to cut. This was only partially satisfying because my tiny note pad had run out of paper, so I was writing the list on a normal sheet of college ruled. Large, long, lots of unused space. Counter-intuitive to the whole idea of the list, with its necessary economy and compartmentalization. So I added something: Find note pad.

This was accomplished later in the day, before I walked to work. Fidgeting at my desk, I pulled out the notebook containing the previous list and examined it. I had nothing to check off aside from the purchase of the note pad. So I copied the list again, with a few added details, this time nestling the items into their proper place and order on the new pad. I focused on the handwriting, affecting a rushed precision. Letters mere replicas of their normal form, ascenders and descenders slightly altered. I combine my n's and g's in words like thinking to make j's, or thinkij. Satisfied, I put the note pad back in my bag.

After returning home, I sat down with the list and slowly eliminated nearly all of it. Envelopes sat in a neat stack next to the new notebook and pen, which I had purchased along with the notepad. I wrote some letters, copied my social security numbers a few times, wrote a check, folded folds and searched for tape. Tape, and the absence of it, tends to throw these fits of organization into chaos. It was in the drawer next to the can opener. I checked more items off of the list and went to bed.

2002-03-24T11:49:00.000-05:00

"The greatest thing in the world is the alphabet as all wisdom is contained therein - except the understanding of putting it together." - german bookplate

You would marvel at the interlocking power of our stories, the immense and complete compression. At 30,000 feet it becomes another wind current. So, decompression:

Four teens stole an elephant and were arrested twice. California has lots of jails, and need young people to justify their existence.

Mostly because I tripped him, Ed stubbed his toe on the beach and received several opinions on its condition, of varying levels of expertise.

Crystal was adopted and doesn't see much of her real mother. Her father could be one of 20 people on a list somewhere.

Orange groves dont smell like oranges, but rather a composite smell that reminds you of the idea of an orange, enhanced with a larger sense of knowing and agreeing with where the oranges are coming from.

The scale on which one can appraise the taste and quality of a burrito has been vastly increased.

Aaron's car did not have turn signals, which never really caused a problem. It ran on cigarettes and whiskey and we only had to tow it once. Aaron services Will Smith's mortgage. He has been late with payments.

All of the nude dancers wear the same perfume.

Melissa shares the bathroom with a middle aged man, who lives in the attic, a young woman and her infant son, and another woman who never leaves her apartment but listens to baseball loud enough that it comes in through the wall in the kitchen. Melissa has spent most of her life in California, save a mysterious foray into Kansas where she picked up an accent. Her father was quick with bail.

Frank says, "All us bean-eaters are brothers." He's thinking maybe its time to move out.

Terry broke her leg playing Break the Golden Gate on the beach in 1982. She spent the summer in a cast, and the jig was up when her parents came to visit. She still has arthritis and the pictures.

The Hollywood letters really are there. Hollywood and Vine was an intersection where I cut someone off and took the turn hard as we argued whether the burrito place looked authentic enough to stop at. The tourists were there to look at eachother.

Mike met the niece of his famous lookalike, the guy who plays the cameo boyfriend with an overarching social tic on several popular sitcoms.

I have now publicly urinated in six major U.S. cities.

2002-03-14T16:31:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow morning I am on a plane that will reverse a few time zones and leave me in California. Despite the fact that California is the mythic birthplace of the computer, I do not plan to have access to any during my stay there. Therefore, this site will take a little nap, and next weekend I will come back and wake it up. Take this time for yourself, turn to your loved ones and let them remind you why it is you revel so in being alive.

2002-03-12T12:12:00.000-05:00

I mentioned before that some items were stolen from my house, then returned two days later on our doorstep in a paper sack, and that those items included allergy medication, magnets and a radio shack phone. The perpetrators of this prank are still at large.

Yesterday morning, our copy of Things Fall Apart, a printing from the mid 70s, complete with blaxploitation-esque cover art, appeared on our doorstep. I recalled lending it to Todd last summer, Todd who went to England, but was back this weekend, visiting, telling everyone he had been exiled and fooling them.

Yesterday afternoon, I emerged from the lobby of the Press Building into the crisp, filed-away air of downtown DC to see my bike on its haunches, still moored to the rack and missing its back wheel, looking not unlike a donkey taking a rest. Becoming aware that all passersby had their gaze trained on my sorry visage, I tried and failed to think of what the expression someone is supposed to have after a loss as insignificant, yet demoralizing, as that of a stolen bicycle wheel. I unlocked the frame and carried it to the curb, where no taxi would stop for me and my cargo. Get a wagon, a turbaned man shouted. After doing so, and securing the pitiful skeleton in the trunk with my scarf, we were off through the heart murmurs of rush hour traffic. The driver made small talk, peppering his phrasing with over-americanized curse words. Shit man, that is some fucked up shit, he repeated, giggling a bit.

This morning, on our doorstep: a bicycle wheel.

2002-03-11T15:46:00.000-05:00

Sayings.

What I meant to say was that we need to redefine the term American, so that the term anti-American is inherently and instantly negated. A creation of an archetype that has no complement, no antagonist. No one could be said to be an anti-American, and no one could be said to be an anti-Canadian and so on, around the shrinking world. What would protesting be? Simultaneously everything and nothing, a tightly-packed continuum. That same vapor I ran from in the bathroom. Nothing could fit in it, like a vacuum or a crowded bus. Lets all just wait for our stop and we will be ok.

But I didn't say that. And I didn't say anything when the neophyte neo-cons said Sometimes a little bullying is a good thing, and split hairs about the continuation of the current administration even after a major nuclear attack. No one seemed phased by the fact that, in the event of such an attack, a boat up the Potomac, that we would all become instantly crystallized silhouettes of our memories and nothing more. Enshrined to forgetfulness and bipartisan agreement. Fucking shadows. I nodded off and looked drugged when they talked about the need to cut out the black market for heroin.

On saturday, Megan said the following things to her cat:
"I wouldn't love you if you weren't so goddamn cute."
"Once you get fat and ugly, its back on the street."
"No, you little bitch."

On the street, a classmate said "You seem to know your shit, who do you read?" I wanted to turn into a thousand marbles and clatter on the pavement. Instead, I made something up.

2002-03-09T11:10:00.000-05:00

I'd like you to think of this party in terms of a triptych, Lindsay said. On one side, people were uncomfortable because Leigh said something about heroin chic. At least thats what I could gather. I only barely overheard the words but I could see them hanging in the air and everyone wincing.

Then the exuberant girl started telling me her latest story. A mutual acquaintance of ours had confronted her in a bar, slightly inebriated and remembering that she was a radical. Who do you want to win, US or Russia, he spit. Cmon, say USA USA. She wouldn't do it. I'm gonna go work for the World Bank, he continued. Later, she told me, he started up a chant of Bourgeoisie, bourgeoisie from the other side of the bar. After she left and once we were getting ready for bed, he knocked on the door. This tends to happen at the most inopportune times. He had with him the girl, who always changes but maintains a countenance that assures she is having a terrible time. I'm gonna be in the army, and I'm gonna be the po-po, he slurs.

Yesterday in the bathroom, as I stood at the urinal, several thoughts raced through my head and I may have spoken one or two of them. Just rudimentary stuff, I'm so bored, I need to get out of here, something like that. As I finished and moved to the sink, I heard a shuffle emerge from one of the stalls, which my darting eyes matched to a pair of feet. I had thought I was alone. Suddenly I became filled with the fear that I had spoken all of my thoughts aloud. I could not determine if I had. They were already vapor. I ran out without drying my hands.

2002-03-07T20:18:00.000-05:00

She took off her watch and placed it on the table. Every five minutes or so, she gripped her wrist, looking for the time. There was no watch there. A bracelet, maybe, but the watch was on the table. "I'm just trying not to lose track of time."

I wrote a card to send to the abortion providers. Today was the day that we were thanking them. The girl behind the table had started a conversation with me before in the line for burritos. Ethan, right? she asked, hesitating. There were some other people nearby, writing cards, and she seemed wary of their presence. Evan, I responded, but thats ok, I like Ethan better. Oh no, she said, I've always called you Evan before, but today I decided to call you Ethan. I wrote that what the abortion providers do saves lives. The girl, who's name would be Jeannie, as I say it to myself but did not tell her, created a small vagina out of red and blue glitter glue, somewhat absentmindedly. Someone next to me asked her, what are you doing?

In the liquor store a regular said Hey my man, have you been lifting weights? or lifting thighs? I thought to myself, fives? What does lifting fives mean? You been lifting thighs, he said, pinching my arm. Maybe a little of both, I said, for no reason whatsoever. Taxes on beer are occaisionally referred to as "sin taxes". Say that over and over again.

2002-03-06T19:28:00.000-05:00

On the wall across from the kids playing basketball, a woman said "I hear its going to be 70 this weekend. If we didn't lock that door we would never get to go home."

The catholics wore their robes and flew their banners and passed out flyers against the socialists. The man with the dusty spectacles told me that I didn't know what neoliberalism meant. I told him capitalism has no built-in moral accountability. He accused me of oversimplifying. For the rest of the day I overheard variations of this conversation.
"Who are those guys in robes?"
"I dont know, socialists..."

They lose.

The eight is for our people in the air.

2002-03-05T16:28:00.000-05:00

We distract ourselves with instant art when we should really be contemplating instant war. War that peels away reason day by day, minute by minute. War that finds itself in the thrill of danger, behind cold stares in the folds of Afghan foothills. After awhile it trips on headlines.

The consent of the governed is an extra-value meal on the menu of world domination. We command everything at once, respect, subjugation, open markets, and flinch unconsciously at the clamor that piles at our doorstep. Who is speaking for me and why is he speaking in such short sentences? Has he been blown apart, atomized, thermobarically warped through subterranean horrors? I won't ever be there.

Rows of newspaper stands are trying to engineer sadness, when we already know it. It's been living in us like a shuddering vagrant for months. The word "kill" is a vector like a cold front. Weather, A20. I come closer to passing out beneath stars and stripes. Exhaustion. I'm told that art is the understanding of true suffering. Instant art, then, is crass. Coca Cola and Andy Warhol. What about instant war?

2002-03-04T16:36:00.000-05:00

The endless stories continue in our paperwork. There is a woman in line at the post office, letting everyone skip ahead of her in line while she rifles through a handful of returned checks she got back from the hospital. You can go ahead, she says to me, words temporarily beaming from her face, viewing me sidelong. Then she goes back to her furious worrying. One of the checks is stamped in red. Please Wait for the Next Attendant. I hear her sighing.

On the street, a man blocks my path, his hunched body positioned so that I cannot comfortably pass him on either side without halting my stride. I step down into the street as he fumbles at a worn package in his breast pocket, his shoulders contorted in a 45 degree angle to his torso, looking like Rodin waiting for a bus to fall from the sky. I pass him with hesitation, and he burps, then grumbles something intelligible only, perhaps, to him. A few houses up, I pass two middle-aged women sitting on a stoop, sharing a bottle of Pepto-Bismol and laughing. Their lips are coated pink.

In the car, I notice a book sitting on the wall outside my passenger window, engorged with rainwater. I bet its a bible, I say aloud. I'd think it was a romance novel, the driver says.

After listening to students argue about the relevance of accidental art (I forget the French word), I watch a flock of seagulls launch and land again like a parachute on the lawn outside. Its as if they can't decide where to go once the wind changes direction. Inside, the atmosphere is only .003 percent neon.

In the crowd, my knuckles rest on those of the person next to me for over a half an hour. I do not notice this until the last song.

2002-03-03T15:15:00.000-05:00

Rufus and the rest have a friend that has totally lost it. He doesn't even know what he believes anymore. They think it was after the whole "jews killing jesus" thing from the radio show. What is his whole thing with anti-semitism? they wonder. He just says things for shock value, he doesn't know what he stands for. Last night he was heckling every band and it was just terrible, everyone just wanted him to stop, they were pleading in their minds.

I watched three fellows in a row play air drums to Tortoise, and wondered when we were going to start the dance party. Rufus argued with his roommate about their pact not to ever buy or wear deodorant. There was some Old Spice on the counter next to the Bayer. There was something funny about that.

Russell had to carry Jessica home. Partly because she could not walk, and partly because it was cute and he was strong enough to do so. The joke was that if we saw a security officer, to pretend to be laughing and kidding around, and not doing what were actually doing, which was transporting a drunk underaged girl back to her room. Moments after walking outside, we saw a security officer and began laughing. After a few rounds of this, Jessica decided that she could walk.

In the morning, we went to breakfast. Pete, the friend who has lost it, sat down next to me. Are you with the emo kids or the punk rock kids, he asked me. Pete, dont be mean, Jessica said. I'm not being mean, he said, and you are the third person to tell me that today. Then some people walked in saying Marco. Polo. Do they think that is funny, Pete said. Its how they say hi to eachother, Jessica said. Pete tried to pretend to be nice to me after this. He asked me where I went to school, and if i was one of those right-winger types. I said I wasn't sure where he got that from. Marco, he said. No one responded. Marco, Jessica said. Polo, the guy at the end of the table said. She grinned smugly and Pete looked frightened. A few minutes later, Pete said Marco, a lot louder. And the guy said Polo. Then Pete told us all about how much he hated hippies and how he wanted to be a quadriplegic.

When I got home, the items that were stolen from my house had been returned in a brown paper sack. These items were: Mike's phone, Mike's address book, Mike's skull ring, Mike's medication, two magnets from our refrigerator, and a level.

2002-03-02T12:08:00.000-05:00

Images from last night's suare. Someone brought a dog, a puppy. But I was too dumb to take a proper picture of it. This dog was way cute. It was probably the best aspect of the party, aside from the glue hair and me crowd surfing in my living room. I have now done an Vedder-esque front flip off of my couch (while 'evenflow' was on, no less) and crowdsurfed in my living room, which basically constitutes a full on seattle-revival, in my mind.
There is a fistful of bills next to the keyboard that I'm gonna dip into in order to go thrifting today. What's up, new wardrobe.

2002-03-01T02:39:00.000-05:00

Signs.
Osama. Bananas.
Caps. Me.

In the office bathroom at work, well dressed men do all sorts of things. They brush their teeth while peeing. They vomit in the toilet. They clear their throats and spit while scrubbing out the coffee pot. They retreat into the stall and moan aloud. They read Fortune Magazine. They floss.

Last night, Mike kept talking about the "scrimmage for the class war". I no longer owe him money.

I'm just going to kick some links:
Iraq is "evil", but that isn't stopping us from buying their oil like its going out of style.
The US has had a shadow government in operation since Sept 11, operating in secrecy underground. It is not known whether they are operating in caves.
Howard Zinn on the expansion of the war.
If I didn't just write checks to my landlord and my roommate, I'd probably get some of these.
I can't figure out what this is, but I plan on spending a long time attempting to do so.

2002-02-28T18:00:00.000-05:00

Last night while trying to sleep I felt the unmistakable subterranean waver of airplane turbulence. It washed over me for a period of five or so minutes. I felt wrung out but could not sleep. I drifted into an hour long suspension in reality, not quite fear or anything. Earlier, I partially sleptwalked all the way outside and to the corner, feeling the traffic more than seeing it, a cold glow resting its arms on my chest. My nights are an inversion of my days, they have no order or rationale.

Today I went caffeine free and damn near crazy. Tonight I am busting out the special coffee.

Sometimes I am nothing more than a sponge on feet, soaking everything up. Today at lunch I annoyed scott with my observations. Three sleek mid-30s business types sat near us in the cafeteria and left all of their trash behind when they left. Bikini babes leaned in close over my shoulder. Bible verses talked to me on the street, tongue in cheek.

I don't feel like admitting any more. Two last things, there's a party at my house tomorrow night and they are rewriting the Port Huron Statement.

The magnifying glass hovers and rotates counter-clockwise, searching for the file and lulling me to sleep.

2002-02-27T15:28:00.000-05:00

Today has been an unexpectedly productive day. After sleeping 5 tortured hours I rode down to my DeLillo class, where the rest of the class had already begun writing an essay comparing Miller the modernist with DeLillo the postmodernist. This was an interesting wake up call. I managed to write a not so bad essay, considering i read maybe one third of Tropic of Cancer.

Addendum to my rantings on student elections: Apparently there is some kind of regulation stating where people can stand while they palm card for the candidates. Outside of several buildings, the enthusiastic shouting people congregated, and I realized that they were all boxed in. What made the boundaries which they could not cross? You guessed it, masking tape. After several different people had thrust ballots in my face as I walked by, I began grunting at them. "ooooooo kaaaaaaay," one of the girls said, completely repulsed by my forced apathy.

In the elevator, some kid kept chanting "vote for brian (something)" like he was at a football game trying to start the Wave. I mumbled, "if anyone in this elevator can give me a reason to go vote, I will do it right now." No one said anything.

Plans are coming together. Spring break will be Los Angeles, and a possible drive up the coast to Portland. Summer I will be here in D.C. at the internship, then going somewhere fun. Fall will be Vienna. There was a time in my life, a long time, where I never thought I would go anywhere or do anything interesting. Some kind of middle class lack of mobility stigma. I am blowing that shit up. A bomb up the ass of the world, as Henry Miller would say. Or so I'm told.

Charisma doesn't have charisma, but she has zines.

2002-02-26T16:17:00.000-05:00

This morning I woke up almost three hours early, got out of bed, brushed my teeth, drank some tea, did pushups and read for an hour. DeLillo, who plants fuses in your brain and blows them out. I read this line: "He was the caffiene dregs of an insomniac century." Yeah, I did pushups. Lately I am having identity issues, so I figure I might try outwitting myself, doing unordinary things. I don't know if this will work.

Since we decided to watch A Bridge over the River Kwai in humanities class, despite it being chock full of historical inaccuracies and laughable orientalism, I sat and made lists instead. As I looked at all of the people I need to send zines to - Sweden, the Netherlands, Oregon, Wisconsin - I became possessed with the need to travel. Kristy was going through Europe last week, and I read her description of taking a mysterious train to a remote French village, then crossing the border to wherever. Borders, arbitrary cartography perhaps, but I really need to watch them dissolve firsthand. I'm tired of riding my bike up and down 18th Street northwest. Then the canadian soldier said to the siamese girl: "You are very pretty."

In my next class, blackhawk down guy said something like "Capitalism is just something I really want to do." But then he seemed almost overjoyed by some comment I made later, so I felt bad for sending so many negative vibes at him. Maybe I should start being nicer. But I still haven't forgotten when he said "IMF protesters don't know what they are talking about" last week. He's going to have to really kiss my ass to get off the hook for that one. I wonder if other people in this class have as many mental power-plays going on as I do. I really hope so, because there's some real basket cases in there. The girl that always sits next to me and laughs in this high pitched hiss at everything with the slightest hint of humor attached to it had a see-through CD player with her today. The CD she was listening to was "Lord of the Rings". I'm thinking soundtrack, but I guess it could be a book-on-CD. Most of the people at this school are either ignorant or oblivious.

CNN is losing their shit over anti-American sentiment. Apparently some new polls have confirmed that, news flash, the majority of the arab world does not like the US. So of course they bring on some talking head to berate Arabs with phrases like "we have freedom, equality and democracy," and "you can't take innocent human life to address your sentiment". Then an analyst comes on and chimes in that "the Islamic world sees American values as deeply materialistic" in a voice that might as well have Mr. Rogers attached to it and a bouncing ball dancing over each syllable. Yeah yeah, whatever buddy, let's cut away to a story about Enron.

Tonight I might go see Michael Moore speak. That should be uplifting. The left keeps trying to reinvent itself, but it should probably just keep on looking like Michael Moore.

I am taking select friends out to dinner to thank them for lending me money all of the time during my 6 month period of being more or less broke as shit. I will let you know who you are. Please know that this is also a vehicle through which I will clear my own guilty conscience for being a huge mooch. Play along.

I added a counter and links just for the heck of it. They are very distracting. I might not keep them. I might also change the entire template cuz I'm getting tired of the white. This is very important to you.

Everyone click on "get your war on". It is crass, but funny. It has been updated recently with Voltron running the Office of Homeland Security. In the heeeeooowse!

2002-02-25T17:58:00.000-05:00

I think pink floyd said money is a crime and he was right. But I just walked into my office to find a check for 600 some dollars waiting for me. I had kinda forgotten how long I had been back at work without getting paid. I'm trying not to be excited but I am! I can pay mike and ed back (when the check clears, fellows) and I can pay some bills and I can make some more copies without having to do the "buy a pack of gum at safeway and pay with your ATM card and get 5 dollars back, because you only have 7 in your account" trick. I'd rather just get them for free but it appears that my friendly hookup at kinkos has left for greener pastures. Not that I blame him, I just wished I'd paid more attention when he hit all those buttons that disabled the counter on the machine last time.

I have become a bit overwhelmed with guilt for having not read a significant amount of my reading this semester. This includes All Quiet on the Western Front, The American Political Tradition by Hofstadter (which I read in high school but that don't count), Tropic of Cancer (after much struggle, I did not read this), a book on the culture of tattoo communities, and a book on women in 1950s television. You might say that what I haven't read could fill a library. So I have endeavored to read all of these books this week. Plus the ones that are actually due this week.

Apparently student election mayhem has begun again at my school. This has never had a significant effect on me. When I worked at the paper I had to deal with it to a certain extent, but this year I had almost completely forgotten. Then today I rode my bike to campus to find the telltale signs. Paper everywhere, banners masking taped to every possible flat surface. So and so for undergraduate pencil sharpener. By my 1215 class, the masking tape had given way en masse, just like it did last year and the year before that, and the banners were released to blow down sidewalks, or crumple into heaps in corners, or to wrap themselves around trees and lampposts. Wonderful. The irrelevance of all of this is symbolized by masking tape. Has anything positive ever been constructed with masking tape? Think about it.

In my political thought class, which I am amazed I am still going to, we talked about the myth of Abraham Lincoln. He didn't really free the slaves with the Emancipation Proclamation, he didn't believe in racial equality, and he never really made an unequivocal statement on any intentions to give black people any amount of equal rights. Yet we hold him up as the Great Emancipator. I raised my hand and said something about how we are bound to hypocrisy whenever we hold a person up as a historic figure, and give them a statue. We are always going to find faults with them in hindsight. Martin Luther King was a womanizer, I said. The discussion shifted to whether or not it was important to give children the whole story as they are growing up in public schools. Astoundingly, many people thought the kids were better off with the sugar cookie version. "You can't breed a generation of cynics," said one person, a statement that I'm sure made a ton of sense to them. Why not? I wondered. What if we started telling children the truth about history at a young age? If I had known that US history was spotty at best in terms of moral liability from age 7 on up, would I be any less cynical than I am today? I don't think so. This will take a lot more thinking.

Recently the civil war in Colombia flared up again, and we are still funding the military there.

My definition of terrorism.

Good news, Kristy is home safe in da Netherlands. Click on the pictures, its totally worth it.

I really hope there is mail when I get home tonight, although I guess I'm already grateful to the postman.

2002-02-24T13:00:00.000-05:00

So I am inexplicably up and at em this morning. I don't really remember how I got home but the important thing is I got there. Night consisted of taxis, dancing with a rose in my mouth, writing on the mirror in toothpaste, abusing bathroom substances, and trying to sleep in the stairwell. I am dangerous. The picture is how I feel now.

Melanie is opening me up to the internet. Look at all this stuff! She is like a oracle or something.
vortex
youth in revolt
and the amazing uncapitalized.

And the pseudo-dictionary! I am linking to the page with "e-maize" on it. Apparently, e-maize is e-corn. Virtual corn.

and theres this. because there's something soothing about sean connery using NFL/tom cruise vernacular. Sean Connery should be made to say every word, phrase and sentence ever said by man. I want to hear Sean Connery saying "I want to customize my e-platform", "If Karl Marx says I am full of shit, I want to fight him", "I am so stoned right now" and "Did Tracy tell you about her new cell phone? It has pastel buttons!"

I am feeling really silly.

2002-02-23T15:12:00.000-05:00

Today was about regeneration. We got back from Richmond at 5am, Sean and I sleepwalked around the apartment (is there a past tense of sleepwalk? im stumped) for awhile. I finally found tea after needing it for hours. The throat got worse throughout the night and by the time we got to the diner at 2am I was feeling like an old virginia slims devotee with emphysema, hacking away while hunched over my glass of so. virginia tap water, casting annoyed glances at everyone in the crowded cafe. I watched the last 10 minutes of the US and Russia game, thinking thoughts of childhood and political conflicts. The US was up by a goal and I really wanted Russia to score, partly because I didn't want the US to win (our hockey stars are flamboyant and selfish) and partly because I wanted to see it go into overtime. The people in the booth behind me seemed more patriotically invested in the outcome.
"We need another goal."
"Yeah, we can't let Russia beat us."
Its funny to think that the old cold war associations still hold weight with common Americans. This must be exceedingly true when it comes to hockey.
Anyway, we got home at 5, and I found tea and fixed up my throat before nodding off. I found the second issue of I Hate this Part of Texas at the 818, so I read a little bit of sewer exploring euphoria before nodding off.
The show was good. Bazhena (left) played well, although they need to get some new songs in the mix. Black Eyes (right) won some new fans. I overheard a kid behind me whisper "gang of four" to his neighbor and I turned around and said "but thats a good thing!" And it so is. Daniel, in red, hit me in the face with a drumstick. Awesome. Early Humans kicked more cave paintings, with a Black Flag theme. I gave some zines to the kid running the space because I couldn't pay to get in, and by the end of the show they were all gone. Yay!
Annoying thing: whenever I go to anarchist spaces for whatever reason, to hang out, to see a show, to get some literature, the "non anarchist" people I happen to be with never fail to make obnoxious comments referring in some way to how silly it is to be an anarchist. Maybe I'm being sensitive, but I am always so impressed by how autonomous spaces manage to maintain themselves and a sense of positive, productive mindset, and I get annoyed when people somehow find that earnestness to be a joking matter. I consider myself in some ways to be an anarchist. Obviously I dont present myself as one and I probably couldn't spout off on Berkman or what have you, but I know the basics and they ring true for me. I don't see why others dont want to try and recognize themselves in that sense. bleh, im rambling.

oh I found this, a blogspot page that links to some righteous writings, including some stuff I linked to yesterday.

Lindsay is supposed to be coming over so we can make vegan cake for megan's birthday party. I don't know where she is. Sometimes I secret myself away in this little compound down here and I can't hear the doorbell ringing.

today melanie showed me a zine distro page that happened to be run by a girl I think I went to high school with, briefly. I remember seeing her around and thinking "that is the cool girl" but never talking to her. Then she transferred or graduated or something. Now maybe she will distro my zine and we can be all CB East reprazent. who knows. vanilla suburbs.

I'm still wondering about sleepwalking. Sleptwalked?

2002-02-22T12:51:00.000-05:00

I feel really tired today. It is possible to sleep too much. I went to bed at midnight last night, and got up at 9! so....almost normal. I figured after such a weird day I should just duck out early. The Thomas Frank book is really good.

I saw Storytellers. Pretty amazing. I like how Todd Solondz makes these movies that are like "there is no correct way to live your life." And he comes up with these scenes that he knows no one wants to see. High school kids playing with guns. A kid with cerebral palsy having sex. A kid getting his spine broken on the football field. A girl undressing in front of a man who is going to rape her. I couldn't count on two hands the moments during that movie that you could hear the paint curling on the walls and nothing more. We were repulsed. Also, it was for free. Seeing a free movie cant ever be bad, because its basically the same as walking outside and watching people on the street, but with a factored-in intent to entertain.

Hectic day at work today, we are trying to get in touch with expatriated Colombian journalists, trying to prove that regimes we support kill journalists, too. Not much to say about it. Going to richmond tonight to see the best bands of 2002. Apparently afterwards we are "doing Richmond," which sounds really intense. I've never been there before. Hopefully I don't feel too sick to stay up all night living the life.

All sorts of interesting things coming at me today, so I shall link.

Norman Solomon's latest piece on the raving lunatic that is Thomas Friedman. If we let him, this man will take over the world.

Sam also pointed me to something we (but not "me") worked on awhile ago. A timeline of US policy dealings with Iraq, sanctions and weapons inspections. The gist of it is that the oftentimes US stance on the sanctions is that they will be lifted once Hussein agrees to weapons inspections, which he did in 1998. This timeline shows that this is not actually the case, and that sanctions will most likely continue until he is completely removed from power. A process which will only add to the civilian death toll that is already reaching into the millions. how cheerful.

This poem by W.H. Auden seems really relevant right now. Time as a linear concept is weird.

cough cough.

2002-02-21T17:37:00.000-05:00

Not sure where to start with this day. How about the beginning?
I was lying in bed at 1 am, dozing off with my new book on the evils of the global market, when sean jumped on top of me. Right off of the train from philly. We stayed up for a few hours watching Hoover videos, excitement. Then Zach showed up incredibly wasted from some bar. I wont divulge the details of this encounter, aside from this classic piece of dialogue.
Zach: "sean, make out with me"
Sean: "uhhm....no"
Zach: "you're a dick."

This went on until around 5am. Woke up around 10 to a telemarketer trying to sell me the Washington Times, which is barely a newspaper.
"I don't want it, and you already called me last week at this time," I told her.
"Well, the computer called you, not me," she said, matter of factly.
"Um, ok."
"Do you want me to take it out of the computer?"
"Yes."
"Are you at home?"
"Yes."
I wanted to ask her how the computer, since it seems to be more powerful than her, didnt have the capacity to know that I was at home and not, say, at the dentist or something, but I was too tired.

So I got up early. Not that early since I was already planning on skipping my first class. Apparently we were going to watch the Bridge on the River Kwai. I pass. Went and got a new bike seat with sean, and was treated to City Bikes' wonderfully benevolent 10% "theft discount". It warmed my heart but made wonder about the profit margin there must be on bike parts, if they can just knock off 10 percent when I tell them some flimsy story about getting ripped off.

After inhaling a plate of home fries and toast in under 5 minutes, I sped down to campus, only to be late to the one class i can't be late in. I didn't look so bad because the king of annoyance came in several minutes after I did. The "I relate everything cultural to Friends and my lame temp job" guy. He proceeded to whisper to me had I heard that there had been a stabbing on campus this morning. No, I said. Well yeah, he told me, apparently someone got stabbed in the Marvin center and bled to death. Oh, I said, trying to deflect the information he had decided to lavish upon my ears only. There's nothing I hate more than when people I don't like make little comments to me in class, like we are pals or something. But yeah, I'm pretty sure someone got stabbed today. Who really knows? I don't feel like finding out for myself.

Now I'm at work and things are getting crazy because we just found out that Daniel Pearl is dead. The Wall Street Journal reporter taken hostage in Pakistan. Death, everywhere! Trying to ruin a warm sunny day. Today I watched a cigarrette butt disposal spew flames from its screened top. People gawked at it helplessly. I just tried to call Belgium and they didn't answer. If they did, I was going to have to manage to talk to someone in German about Pearl. I don't know what time it is over there.

CNN tells me Daniel Pearl was a musician with a child who will never know him. We won't ever know about the person who was stabbed today. We also don't know about the journalists who have been killed by US backed paramilitaries in Colombia. When is CNN going to admit that most murders are just statistics that gather dust?

Now my boss is calling me on his cell phone from an ice skating rink, telling me how to get in touch with the Committee to Protect Journalists. People are always very genuinely surprised to hear that I play ice hockey.

erin: "my prefrosh asked me if i found love at college. i laughed so hard that i almost spit a crouton."

If I ever get out of here, I'm going to try to see Storytellers tonight. Things are tense. My new bike seat rules. In the computer lab, someone's cell phone ringer was the opening riff of Guns and Roses' "Sweet Child of Mine." I'm almost out of zines. It is early morning in Beijing.

2002-02-20T20:45:00.000-05:00

A day of balance. My bike seat was jacked last night, but I got a check in the mail. I had to walk to school today, but it was nice out, and I wore headphones. In my poli sci class, some kid actually said, with such obvious pride that I thought he might burst into tears of joy, that "a capitalist society like ours allows anyone to move up in social rank, as long as they have the will and motivation to do it," and I wanted to cry; but in my delillo class, my professor said "the true artist has to embrace the calamity that is being in the world" and I wanted to cry. On the way home, it started to rain, but i had an umbrella.

I went up to my DeLillo professor after class to ask her about Simone Weil, and I got so excited by what she was telling me that I made some crazy hand gesture and flung coffee all over the both of us, mostly me. The coffee itself was probably also to blame for that. She gave me a possible paper topic to compare Kafka, Weil and Miller's anorectic philosophy as compared to Delillo's. fucking righteous.

I spent 4 hours in Kinkos whirring, taping, cutting and folding, and the new issue of Final Descent is the result. I don't know who reads this, but if anyone wants a copy, email me at ewood@gwu.edu. For those of you who have already asked for one, its in the mail tomorrow. I'm kinda happy about it.

Last night we hit up Ben's Chili Bowl after the black eyes show. Off the hook. Being vegetarian completely rules. Who needs meat when the worlds most renowned Bill Cosby and Puff Daddy endorsed Chili place makes their stuff with TVP? fuck it.

I came around a corner in the library today and almost ran into a girl on a cellphone. The statement she was saying as we collided was: "is she still in labor?"

Now I read mad books.

2002-02-19T19:04:00.000-05:00

um so its gonna be like 60 tomorrow. and that means that i am going to wear a fucking t shirt. i'll probably spend half an hour tonight figuring out which one to wear.

On the street, a foreign woman asked me where the nearest "bahns and nerdle" was. "uh i think theres a borders on the corner," I said. She looked at me confusedly.
"BAHnes and NERdle," she repeated.
I walked away.

Last night milemarker had really awesome beards, and I decided that I really wanted a massive unabomber/american taliban-esque beard. A huge, flowing, anti-social, "dont talk to me, obviously this beard means i am super intelligent and hate you" beard. But this morning I shaved anyway. If there is a god, I wish for him to give me facial hair.....NOW.

The show was full of haircut people. I dont know how I feel about these people. I mean, I guess I dress in a mildly similar fashion, and I somewhat care about my appearance, but these people are just scary. And they insisted on spazzing out in this odd way during arab on radar, a way that strongly suggested that they wished they themselves were on stage. I'm all for dancing at shows, and expressing yourself in whatever way the music compels you to, but I think its funny when the kids in the audience are trying to live out some kind of hardcore fantasy by somehow acting more flamboyant than the people on stage. Especially when these people happen to be arab on radar, who are pretty much the most bizarre band there is. Weird. And then milemarker comes on, the actual dancy band, and no one dances. Oh well.

Today we started talking about objectivity, and it dawned on me that so much of what we consider objective points of view are no more than authoritarian points of view. This is messed up. I said something about it and the professor immediately marked something in her gradebook. I assume this either meant "smart comment" or "anarchist". we shall see. Shortly after that I compared cockfights to auto racing, in that they are both spectacles in which the spectator watches to live out the experience of death, and one of the annoying kids said "but we dont want the auto racers to die" and I said "maybe we dont," which probably sounded really sick. I really believe that, though. We, as a culture, dont really care about race car drivers. We want them to die. Even Dale Earnhardt. We rejoiced when he died, because it allowed us to elevate him from demigod to martyr. We love it.

I'm going to stop here.

2002-02-18T12:18:00.000-05:00

Took two days off from this to focus on writing for the zine. Half of which is going to be stuff taken from this. Oh well. I couldn't find anything else to write about.
The past few days have been bland, in a good way. Saturday I woke up in the miracle (ah) and went to breakfast with john and michelle, where there were lots of little kids running around. I had scrambled eggs and mashed potatoes and ate michelle's leftovers. Then I came home and decided to metro out to the art store for some obscure supplies. I managed to cheat the metro both coming and going, pretty smooth. I can't believe they charge all that extra to go out into virginia. I walked down some superhighway for a mile or so to get to the store. Past strip malls piled upon strip malls. Passing the occaisional odd character stumbling through the weathered trash on the sidewalk. A man sat in a chair holding up a huge sign advertising for some carpet clearance. He read the paper by holding it up on the back of the sign, and smoked a cigarette. A marvel of multitasking and free advertising. On my way back to the metro, he asked me what time it was. "5:30" I told him, amazed that someone would elect to sit by an 8 lane highway, lost in time and not caring about it much. Later, I passed an entire family making their way down the thin path, the young looking excited, the old looking worn. Another day of this, I thought.
I saw a girl on the metro wearing a single boxing glove, colored red white and blue, with the phrase "america fights back!" plastered across it. On the road, an 18 wheeler parked in a vacant lot next to a bedframe outlet read "america's backbone" across a woman's shapely torso, with rolling farmland as background. In the ATM vestibule (where I discovered that I have 20 bucks to my name) two women behind me talked about Jennifer Lopez.
"Her new album is number one?" the first said incredulously.
"I think J-Lo is an axis of evil," the other confirmed.
What?

2002-02-15T10:25:00.000-05:00

Results of my valentine's day date with michelle. We pondered the absence of our distant lovers over chocolate covered pretzels and cigarettes. I took a bunch of pictures. She also gave me a haircut. Its tight. I can walk around my building at work and not get strange looks, which is and isn't a good thing. the picture in the middle is the notes on the door at the miracle. lindsay and michelle live more functionally than any other roommates i know.

When I got to work today there was this strange panic in the air. Sirens were converging on the block and there were all these frantic women in business attire with id tags looking concerned, speaking into walkie talkies. Something was going wrong. Four or five of the women stood within ten feet of eachother, shouting into the walkie talkies. I don't know why they werent just talking to eachother normally. Then two fire trucks arrived and parked across traffic, right next to my building. I stood there for a few seconds, trying to get an idea of what was happening. The fire trucks squawked their "ok we really mean fucking business now, get out of the way" horn at the cars blocking the way to the sidewalk. I decided to go inside and get coffee. It's odd how the urban setting is so desensitized to tragedy. Even after the onslaught of images of people galloping down cluttered new york streets with dirt and debris tumbling after, we just went in for coffee. Several people followed me. Here were two fire trucks blaring through the chaos, women everywhere with walkie talkies, plenty of the general indicators of impending crisis. I didn't feel connected to it. I got coffee, took the elevator up, and I've been in the office for hours since. Nothing happened. Its these stories without end that make us numb. Countless stories without end. What about those women? Did they ever find who they were looking for? Was some flaming cubicle extinguished? The rest of us won't ever know. So we go on thinking that daily life is a fabric of stories that don't end. There's never an end. So we just keep going. Getting coffee and going upstairs to push letters around on screens.

2002-02-14T18:05:00.000-05:00

I decided that life shouldn't be all complaints. Valentine's Day: so what? I got one electronic greeting, and thats it. It has come to this: gauging my life in terms of e-greetings received on valentines day.

I just got done having lunch with my boss and Russell Mokhiber, who is this really insane media activist character. He told me about having a nervous breakdown in Fresh Fields after going around to all of the sample trays ten times, in a cycle. "how do you know you are having a nervous breakdown?" he asked me.
"Foaming at the mouth?" I said.
Later, I lied to him about having a date tonight. I'm not sure why, it seemed more adventurous and mature act like I have some kind of dynamic love life.

in other work news, the stories I have been writing for IPA have now been archived on the site. Validation through the internet.

During some lame presentation in class today a girl pronounced the word "allies" like "alleys", then pronounced "Weimar" like "weemer". Maybe I'm being too picky, but I thought you had to know how to say those words to be let out of high school. i think im just trying to find a way to complain about college, since I do it everyday.

Oh, correction: that kid was on the weakest link, not who wants to be a millionaire. I think he made it pretty far, and this was back when that annoying british woman was the host. So now I know two people who have been on recent game shows involving obscure knowledge disguised as difficult trivia.

I want nothing more than to be kickin it in a t shirt and jeans. Jordan told me we are all going to melt soon, and I know that's supposed to be scary, but I really want some warm weather up in this piece.

Oh josh, if you check this, which you probably dont, I read your cryptic email from the sunny climes of accra, ghana. Hope the whole bathing out of a bucket thing is going well, oh and the christian demigodry doesn't sound so bad.

thats all, tonight we break some laws?

2002-02-12T17:13:00.000-05:00

Lost any Civil Liberties lately? The city is covered in little messages. People on the metro look like they are on television.

The Early Humans. Group seizure! Scott Hammer. Sick as a dog.

More messages. Black Eyes. Drums, please!

The Post finally gets around to the real story. Rock Creek Parkway tunnel as apparition. Later, I had a nightmare that I dropped my camera down there.

Someone just called me at work and said "who am I speaking with?" I told him my name and he said, very enthusiastically, "oh I know I've heard of you before." Then he revealed that he was a lobbyist with a renewable energy company in the southwest. Right, pal, I'm sure I'm the windmill guy in Arizona.

fuck, I wanted to link to the movie jarboe made about forbes, but i forget the url. fabio's crucial line: "black people".

Not much else to say. Breakthrough in my cultural criticism class. well, not really. The kid who goes on and on without making any point whatsoever every single class and interrupts the professor to make deathly unfunny jokes (different guy than the blackhawk down kid) told some ridiculous story about visiting the Vanderbilt mansion, harping on the fact that they have an entire room set aside for cocktails. after class i was walking out behind another kid from the class and i mumbled "that kid annoys the shit out of me" and he turned around, elated that someone else seemed to think so. We had a rant session all the way down the elevator. nice. The cool thing is, this is the kid we used to make fun of when i worked at the paper, cuz he looks remarkably like george costanza. Now i think he rules. Oh he was also on who wants to be a millionaire, which brings my total of people ive met personally that have been on who wants to be a millionaire to a whopping Two. thats probably more than all of you have.

Oh I figured out that I'm getting paid for IPA work. what. now we return to our previously scheduled program of evan voraciously buying records.

oh yeah i forgot to talk about that show. holy shit. black eyes are all like..."whatever, feel on this." and then early humans goes "what does this ink blot look like." and everyone in the crowd says "what?" thats basically what happened.

I'm gonna go ahead and quote matt schnipper: "I really love going to see a band and just going nuts and not really feeling like I have a choice in the matter. Losing my shit is just the situation so just fucking deal with it."

2002-02-11T17:03:00.000-05:00

Last night I made everyone dinner and it was damn tasty. Soup and cornbread is really pretty easy to make, but everyone seemed to think I was some kind of miracle worker. It was nice to relive the sundays of years ago, being lazy on a sunday while the smells of simmering beans filled the house. Only this time I was reading about adobe communes in 1930s New Mexico and listening to the brittle stars instead of procrastinating on my history homework while watching football with my dad. but i guess thats all life is: a series of replacements.

At work today, Sam asked me to "dress nicer tomorrow". Oops. I guess being an "independent journalist" doesn't mean wearing ripped jeans.

I finally spoke up in my political thought class. I'd had enough. Kids were talking about the israel-palestine conflict and that token republican guy (who unfortunately happens to be really smart) was saying something about Arafat wanting to maintain a state of war by encouraging terrorism while Sharon was doing the opposite. "Sharon doesn't need to encourage terrorism, he already has the military," I interjected, provoking a moment of silence in the room. An intense vacuum I felt myself being sucked into, mouth first. Then four or five voices erupted to drown me out. The kid decided to face me head on while the class continued the debate.
"What do you mean he has the military?" he said.
"To bulldoze homes," I said.
"Bulldoze what homes?" he said.
"What do you mean?" I said, growing aware of the 15 or so people near us turning their eyes to me.
"Were you there? Have you been there?" he said.
"No."
"Well, I have."
"Well then, I guess youre right," I said, with a lot of sarcasm but really no rebuttal. What does that mean, "were you there?" Does one have to witness all of history firsthand to cite it in a debate? I wanted to say something like "going on Birthright Israel doesnt make you a foreign policy expert" but abstained, figuring that would draw the ire of the 30 or so people in the room who had probably all gone on that program. Plus, the idea of continuing a bitter argument in the middle of class didnt seem too appetizing. I turned around and steamed for the rest of the period. someone made a much better point than mine when she mentioned that there are a large number of arab israelis in the region who have learned to coexist peacefully with israelis and palestinians, and that they provide hope for a lasting settlement beyond the establishment of a palestinian state. oh yeah, i thought, politics and history isnt always about war and "winning the game" (to use a phrase my professor chirps so often, youd think it was piped in through his pillow), its about fucking compromise. or just compromise.

On a lighter note, I went to an advising meeting and found out that my life, academically, is in a lot more order than I had thought. There is a scene in White Noise where the main character finds ultimate validation when his estimate of his bank balance is matched by the estimate of the ATM machine. The system has smiled upon me. I only have to take four more classes outside of the three required in my major. That means I can take a light courseload, three classes or so, when I go abroad. That rules.

seeing early humans and black eyes tonight. I think I could go through life seeing these bands once a week, just fine. pictures to follow.

the cutest person in the Netherlands is currently Kristy Rowe.

2002-02-10T12:07:00.000-05:00

Hello.
Today will not be like yesterday. I am writing letters, making bean soup from scratch, attempting to make vegan cornbread, and maybe reading Tropic of Cancer. I'm debating whether or not its really worth it to do the last one. I don't know if Henry Miller's cock can fit in my worldview.

Last night at a party I talked with some people about the unfortunate necessity of the verb "to be". Someone told me I was not gene code 2083648evan. Interesting. I interposed that wouldn't it be nice to live in a culture where age was not conceptualized in years, but rather in the various ways you presented yourself. From erudition right on down to the cut of teeth. An eleven year old could be considered as old as a thirty year old. Someone by the keg said "they always do this shit, man", possibly in reference to the lesbian porn on constant loop in the living room. shit you hear at parties.

Crucial wall decoration: male porn star with hard on and head of yasser arafat, under headline "israelis see rising threat"

The night ended, as usual, with me bolting from a moving car and passing out in a doorway. I ate carrots as I fell asleep. In the morning, i had carrot bits in my mouth and a carrot in my hand.

think on that one.

2002-02-09T11:58:00.000-05:00

Explosions in the sky.
I don't feel too well today and there's not much to talk about. Last night we celebrated scott's 21st birthday. He has a backyard. We argued a lot about male/female masturbation. pointless stuff. Scott and Dan played me the tape of their recording and it is really good. I like having friends who are musically innovative. When judgment day comes, they will be spared.

today we go to baltimore to look for records. But i am on a one record limit. There is 150 in my bank account and that has to last me until my next paycheck, the origin or existence of which is highly dubious at this time. Is it bad that I am afraid to ask my place of employment when I am getting paid? It feeds into my anxiety about usefulness. Since I went back, with the exception of a few days here and there, I haven't felt all that useful. so how do I ask for money?

Not much else to say. Every morning the sun comes through the window and hits the computer screen dead on, making it impossible to read. Right now I am racing that effect.

Pictures are my messy room and the man in the mirror.

2002-02-08T12:43:00.000-05:00

I slept through my alarm clock this morning, so my brain had revenge upon me in the form of a weird dream. I stole a shirt from a thrift store that for some reason said "stop the war" on it. Actually I tried to walk out with it on me, and got in this terrible shouting match with the store owner. Meanwhile, hundreds of people massed inside the store, making our communication very strained. I looked over and Megan and Jonathan were waiting for me to leave, and Jonathan was really sick. "Can you hurry up?" Megan said, "Jonathan isn't doing too well." Then I woke up.

Last night I attempted to do research and writing for work, and ended up talking to people on instant messenger for hours on end. I don't know if getting the internet in the apartment was such a good idea.

The Olympics start today. That's weird. I remember in my youth, one of my favorite things in the world was the olympics. I would count the days until it started, and once it did, I would stay up all day and all night watching every possible event. It fed into my two childhood obsessions: sports and geography. I reveled in becoming an instant expert on ski jumping, and pulled out all the maps and encyclopedias in the house, trying to figure out exactly where Latvia was. I set up the VCR to tape everything I missed when I had to leave the house for some reason - which I usually found a way to avoid. I faked sick day after day in 1992 so I could watch the US Hockey team play Sweden and Spain and Russia. I really loved the Olympics.
Now, I couldn't care less. Not only have I become disillusioned with almost all professional sporting events, but I have come to see the Olympics cynically, as another blind juggernaut of global capitalism, masquerading as sport. Is this a bad thing? Was I better off then, 9 years old and glued to the tube? I don't really know.
Anyway, there is a lot of backlash to the Olympics this year. We are working on it at IPA today for a press release. Environmentalists believe that the masses descending upon Park City Utah are going to leave it in all manner of disrepair. The Kensington Welfare Rights Union (who kick ass) are coming in solidarity with a Utah based welfare rights group, to attempt to gain visibility for their cause. Sweatshop activists will be there protesting Nike and Reebok. I support them completely, but I bet they are going to be completely ignored by the mainstream media, if not first annihilated by the police, who are going to be pulling some schwarzeneggar type shit on anyone looking unamerican. after all, this is america's olympics, or something. proof that even though terrorists can attack us, we can go on destroying the world just like nothing ever happened. oh, and our cross country skiiers completely kick the ass of the world's cross country skiiers.
Still, part of me wishes I was still under the blankets at age 12, listening to the school bus chug by my house without me on it, holding the thermometer near the lamp while the puck dropped on US vs Spain.

2002-02-07T00:27:00.000-05:00

A rushed day, but nothing useful yet. Class one, another group project meeting. Having group projects in college is just something that shouldn't ever happen. The professor says: "ok get in your groups, i'll be in my office." Nice work, lady. I wonder how many thousands of dollars you just earned. I know I know, professors don't usually make much money. But cmon, this is the second time in the past two weeks where she has left us to our own devices for an hour and a half, which usually means talking about our "project" for 15 minutes, then leaving. Mom and dad, you'll be happy to know I spent the rest of the time in the library reading for my next class. But I could have just as easily been off somewhere huffing house paint, playing on train tracks, or sticking my fingers in electrical outlets.

Class two: frustrating. I am an American Studies major, which I was led to believe means that I am learning how to analyze and overanalyze everything cultural in every possible way. I was also led to believe that I was in a major full of people with a similar mindset. Yet class after class, people in my discussion keep interrupting to say something like "do we really need to look that closely at this? its just entertainment." i dont understand. If we are here to study "entertainment" and nothing more, then what is the point? The result is that every discussion we have ends up with three or four kids talking at length about an episode of Friends they saw. Well, today it was designing women. Then theres this other kid who I've already developed a bitter rivalry with, ever since his filibuster/presentation on the new york stock exchange as some marvelous bastion of capitalism. Today, he sat next to me (which was weird since I thought I had made it clear that I despise him) and proceeded to make fun of the gay kid in our class under his breath, but loud enough to make it obvious that he was doing it for my benefit. "tickles the palate", "tickles the palate" he kept saying, affecting a lisp, in an apparent imitation of something the kid had said earlier. I kept glaring at him, not wanting to draw any more attention to our side of the room, since there are about 12 people in the class, and we can all hear eachother anyway. What the fuck? I almost had a nervous breakdown. I'm sitting in a class that is basically the hardest/most important class in the major, its obvious that almost everyone there is completely missing the point, and now this kid starts in with 3rd grade humor. College is a complete sham.

It gets worse. Class three was making up a geology lab by myself. Sitting alone in a room, scraping rocks against glass, trying to figure out if they are dark gray or dark green. Lab TA speaking almost incoherent english, attempting to impart to me the most obscure and useless knowledge there ever was or will be.

The pictures are left, the invisible hand's grocery list from a few weeks past. Probably not legible, but it includes succotash, washing machine, world peace, peas, and "fuckin...eggs". at right is erin and michelle in the hotel room on new years eve morning. michelle is probably cleaning up, erin is probably calling someone she is obsessed with.

if humanity can go on surviving with the phrase "i never received that memo" completely stricken from speech forever, the world will be a better place. Enron hearings = total bullshit

tonight my dad rolls into town! that means a free, honest meal and some high brow conversation. today is also scott's 21st birthday. jerSEY

2002-02-06T01:03:00.000-05:00

early humans. the new millenium is hideous.

2002-02-05T16:21:00.000-05:00

Within the past 12 hours I have gone from normal guy, to guy who is going to be paid 100 dollars just to eat pizza, and back to normal guy again. Damn focus groups. Apparently I don't eat enough fast food for my opinion to count for anything. Anything meriting compensation in 100 dollars cash, that is. I don't know if could have pulled it off, though, even if I had been invited. One of the questions she asked me was: "When you go to fast food restaurants, do you eat in or take it home?" For some reason it took me a long time to answer that. I found myself going through a catalog of all my fast food visits. Which was somewhat complicated because, in the past year or so, Ive probably only ever gone into a fast food place to use their bathroom or steal their coffee. Not focus group material.

Yesterday was the coldest day ever. I rode home from work downtown all the way home in an adrenaline-fueled, "fuck fuck fuck" laden frenzy, with no gloves and no scarf. I think drool was frozen to my face. At one point, on rush houry Connecticut Ave, I was riding in the fast lane amidst 8 rows of speeding traffic, going faster than most of it. I looked over at cozy SUV domain-master at one stoplight, breath charging out of my pounding head, and bulged my eyes out like a madman, in some attempt to shock him out of his climate controlled sarcophagus and into my cold cold world. he didn't make eye contact. then it started to sleet.

I watched Elimidate for my cultural criticism class, in some valiant attempt to connect it to mating rituals in contemporary culture for a paper. What a fucking crazy show. Four women fawn over this vapid hulk of a man, trying to set themselves apart from the rest while conforming to every tired "dating" standard there is. and then the dude goes and picks the absolute worst one out of the four! amazing!

Then Kara and I watched an old episode of Family Feud on the game show network (this really exists), when Richard Dawson was the host. I had been told that he was always drunk on the show and it was funny, but I was really surprised to see that its totally true. He's all kissing every woman's hand and mumbling into their ears and shit. Crazy, yet somehow awesome. I like to think that there was a time when things on TV were actually real. Drunken pervert guy wandering from woman to woman, trying to kiss their hands: real as fuck. Anyway, the winning family won on the question "name an animal who'se mouth stunt performers place their heads inside of at the circus" not surprisingly, there were only three answers up there, Lion and Tiger had already been chosen. So the woman on the end, who was totally not all there and sounded like edith from all in the family, says "whale." whale? kara and i were hysterical. And then, it was up there. it was fucking up there! whale!

ok this has gone on too long.

2002-02-04T01:01:00.000-05:00

So I did end up leaving the house yesterday. I have these pictures to prove it. One is a parking meter with a sticker saying "Question your motives", a nice little reminder to the encroaching bourgeois bohemians of my neighboorhood, of which I am undoubtedly one. Hello, My Name is Gentrification! Two is the view south from the tennis courts. A billboard for the now defunct Kilimanjaro dance club, a nice pastel. Three is the hallway of Kara and Megan's apartment. Ominous and hazy, kinda like them.

Today I called out to Kara from my bike across the intersection; "I am underdressed as fuck!" and several people turned around and laughed at me. I like providing that sort of entertainment for people. It is seriously cold out, though. In the course of one boring geology class, I watched the weather go from stormy blizzard, to sunny and clear, to monsoon fucking blizzard, to clear again. It kept sending ripples of response through the crowded room. Weather as schizophrenic method actor.

Today is my sister's birthday. Happy 18th Jenna. Now you can buy....cigarettes, porn, lottery tickets, a vote, and...you can get into more shows. What's the deal with 18+ shows, I dont think I ever encountered one before I was 18. That would have been some serious bullshit, though.

I'm doing an ideological analysis of a TV show tonight, which, since I have no TV, means going over to Kara and Megan's to watch (hopefully) The Fifth Wheel. I hope its on, I could write a doctoral thesis on the cultural implications of that shit.

Today in political "thought" class, some kid defended George Bush's use of the term "axis of evil" by saying: "well, if you had lost someone on September 11th, you'd be inclined to call them evil, too." "Oh come on" I muttered, probably a bit too loudly, in what was my first contribution to any discussion in that class since it started a month ago.

Geology provided me with some time to ponder the contents of the next zine. It should be finished by the end of February. Your basic free for all. I'll probably complain about my apathy some, throw in some abstract pictures, and finish it up with a treatise about how good racebannon and black eyes are. Whatever.

Mercalli Intensity Scale VII: everybody runs outdoors. no masonry structures remain standing. Today I learned about earthquakes, simulacra and ritual in a secular society, and thomas jefferson. Dad would be proud.

2002-02-03T11:43:00.000-05:00

Looks nice outside, don't care. I don't plan on leaving the house, or my room even, on this tiny sunday.
My objective today is to read all of Great Jones Street for class on monday. I haven't exactly done any of the reading in any of my classes, after 3 weeks of them, and its starting to grate on my conscience. So today I rock a beat-up hoodie, get under the covers and attempt to finish a book that, so far, has been filled with dialogue like "If the son of a bitch is so great, why doesn't he get me a decent loft to live in, or a safe where I can keep my crappy jewelry, or a fucking truck that I can drive over a cliff?" yeah. somehow, when you plan to stay in bed all day, it carries with it some sense of accomplishment, whereas if you find yourself unintentionally still in bed at 3pm, you tend to feel worthless. The difference is in the planning.
Last night was pretty tight. four of us kickin it to Towson town to see Black Eyes, Early Humans and the Party of Helicopters. Pretty brutal. On the phone last night I sounded like I had a lisp, if that means anything. Jessica was there and apparently had some kind of musical epiphany during black eyes' set, a realization of the reason(s) why people like to listen to "this" music. It was pretty funny, especially when I found Daniel and had her tell him all about it. Later he said to me "Was that girl for real?" yes. if i hadn't already had it years and years ago, I probably would have had it then too. Those guys are fucking geniuses. tempting to trek up to reading next weekend to see them in alex's basement. hmm
From what I can gather, everything went relatively smoothly in NYC this weekend. Minor arrests, a few instances of pepper spraying, but at least 25,000 people marching. Even Santa was there.

Thats it, back to bed.

2002-02-02T11:07:00.000-05:00

bitchin kegger!

2002-02-01T13:48:00.000-05:00

Not feeling too well today. The culture of health and self-improvement is largely a fraud. I went outside to get some fresh air, and watched a homeless man of around 70 pick through the ashtrays, chainsmoking the stubbed-out ends of seven or eight cigarrettes. I marveled at him, this man existing outside the realm of annual checkups, visits to the chiropractor, disinfectants and skin astringents. Not worrying about germs. And desperately sucking at those cigarettes, pulling in a couple more toxins to add to the multitudes undoubtedly swirling within him. How, I wondered, is this man still alive?
Don't really want to be at work today. I'd rather be having soup with Kara.
Works. Word. WordPerfect.

2002-01-31T19:30:00.000-05:00

this is what happens...

2002-01-31T16:41:00.000-05:00

Hooray for pictures. I can't get them to go where I want them, but they are there anyway. I guess I don't really want to be too in control of this thing to begin with.

On the left is an abandoned shop window in Boston. "I don't want my MTV", a nice sentiment, rather arbitrarily placed. In Boston, everything is worn thin and honest. Constant freezings and road salt gives everything this look of barren truth. Everywhere you go there are bits of abrasiveness and undiluted messages. Like this one. Right before I took this picture I watched an itinerant looking man yell obscenities into a payphone for ten minutes. You have to wonder why people are on payphones anymore in this cellular age. Only the desperate.
On the right is myself and lindsay in the car while Ed got gas. I like taking pictures of mirrors, they seem like these fleeting, intangible things, and you pull out a camera and catch them by surprise. I'm not the unabomber but I play him on TV.

Trying not to lose my mind. I don't know if I'm too anxious to start saying that.

Today's weather: more appropriate. Blustery in this urgent way, clouds hang like a lingering death shroud. I keep walking outside just to see what happened. In class, we all winced when sirens burst around the corner. I still get that feeling, that group-consciousness terminal fear, every time that happens.

World Economic Forum protests begin today. Act Up dropped a banner near the Holland Tunnel and 7 were arrested.

Tonight is surrealist film night. Eyeball slicing...

2002-01-30T18:05:00.000-05:00

I go to college with a lot of terrible people. In my political thought class, some chubby Long Island accented husk of a girl went into a tirade about how peasant bean planters in 15th century China had terrible, mundane lives and she would never leave her hyper-convenienced life in the present to go back to that era. Then someone else piped in about how much of the world's cultures she can receive at the click of a mouse, and how significant it is that she can "talk to a friend in Israel" in seconds with a computer. Another kid reminded us that George Washington only took two baths per year, which drew uproarious laughter from a classroom full of people I had assumed to be adults. I wasn't sure how to counter all of these grotesque statements, except by making some grandiose and fatalistic dismissal of all things modern. We are victims of our own luxury. The truth is, we probably don't need to take showers every day. And it's probably not healthy that we run rampant over the world's cultures like e-cowboys wielding mouse pads. And its probably true that the peasant bean planter of 500 years ago had a more satisfying, healthy and fully realized existence. I use the internet, I'm using it right now. I shower, not every day, but more often than George Washington. And I'm sure I have used modern fiber-ether-satellite technology to invade and debase quite a few traditions and cultures. Am I any different from these people who wouldn't shut up today? These little PacMan-like specks, running around their privilege-gilt mazes on auto-eat? I can't figure it out.
Also, everyone laughed about the fact that the Unabomber grew food fertilized by his own feces, but ignored the fact that he used to be a Harvard mathematician. Fuckers.

Theory: the seasons now operate on a weekly schedule. Today it is summer, tomorrow it will be fall, and friday will be winter. Expect snow.

Lindsay just morphed our dinner plans into going to some guy's house for dinner in DuPont. Scary. I don't like interacting with people I don't know when they are making me dinner. Too much strategic advantage going on.

Jerry Bruckheimer can quit rewriting recent US political history, reality is bad enough by now. The White House to the GAO: "Bring it on." Imagine Sean Connery as a haggard Dick Cheney, crumpling the memo in his grizzled fist and muttering those words, as an aide cowers and trembles in the foreground. Coming soon to a theater near you.

being vegetarian today means: V-8, peanut butter, goldenberg's peanut chews and coffee. protein.....check

2002-01-29T16:45:00.000-05:00

Weather makes people eager, it is what they want to perceive in it. Everyone is walking around in tank tops and shorts. Its only 60 degrees but I guess people want to think thats hot enough to don their beachwear. On the bike ride to school I kept leaning back and taking deep breaths.
First class was another waste of time, a group meeting for some project I have yet to even think about, let alone do any research for. They all looked at me and said "what do you have so far?" "nothing," I said, completely without apology. Then, something odd happened. A kid walked into the class late and apologized to the professor and his group, and then said "i just found out, I'm being deployed." The room went instantly silent, and I almost had to grin at the irony that this little event was happening in a class called "War and Memory". He looked frightened, but clothed in a sort of sparkling-new nobility. Trying to mask this with trepidation, he continued "yeah, so I'm not sure if I'm going to be in the class anymore." "oh thats alright, dont worry," the professor consoled him. then she said to us, "i guess we'd better get ready for this..." and trailed off.
We really are sending people to war. Its real. It isnt the NBC logo draped in the American flag, it is that kid, too tall, swaying and nervous, telling a round old humanities professor to pick someone else to be in his group to research German war artists from 1910-20, because he's getting on an aircraft carrier on Saturday.

vegetarian: everyone seems to be happy, except Erin, who called me a "sell out", but i dont think she meant that. dont worry, i'm getting protein. today i had a waffle and a grilled cheese sandwich. and a bunch of V-8 from the mystery fridge at work. yum. later, V-8.

need to detach from the computer so I can mail some letters. last night was supposed to be productive, but I ran out of gas.

Saw Russ, from my old job, and he succeeded in making fun of my "tight pants", "unhealthy hair" and "leftist job" in under 30 seconds. i fucking hate that guy.

2002-01-28T17:45:00.000-05:00

Back in the drowning of things after a weekend of escape. I don't know if its possible to encapsulate everything thats been going on. I woke up yesterday morning, staring at a foreign ceiling (feeling foreign, anyway) and pondered all of the things I have to do this week. One stood out, my astronomy homework. Amidst the long list of things to remember, people to email or call, offices to stop by, books to read, meetings to go to...astronomy homework somehow flashed in bold italics, emitting a harsh buzzing sound. 7 am sunday, boston-time, astronomy homework. Fuck.
Today should have been terrible, but it was hard to find fault with. I was late to DeLillo, but we analyzed the end of White Noise, the "cults of the famous and the dead". She compared it to The Wasteland and my little head had fun wrapping itself around the connections. Arranging my lands in order. Datta Dayadhvam Damyata, or whatever. Its trite, but my lifes like that poem which is like that book. 10 am monday d.c.-time, "the language of waves and radiation." then the sun was out, and i peeled off my sweaty extra layers, talked to jonathan about jackie-O motherfucker; ran into a bunch of exciting people, two of whom kissed my cheek; ate a bowl of rice. how can i complain about any of this?
I decided to go vegetarian this weekend. Well, I woke up Sunday and remembered that I had decided. Thank you Jordan, I guess I'll stick to it. There is one can of chicken soup in our cabinet, so I guess I will give it away. I keep forgetting that I decided to do it, and checking over my meals in my head. I had to think quickly to what I had for lunch, and it took a second to remember that yes, it was rice, and yes, rice doesn't have meat in it. The same thing happened, believe it or not, as I was drinking V-8 just now. Does this have meat in it? silly.
I just got off the phone with two people who called me at once. One spoke little English so I guess the second person was his auxiliary conversation-dictator. The only thing he said to me was: "S as in sierra or F as in foxtrot?"
"Sierra?" I said, not so much repeating the word, but mimicking the sounds he'd just made.
"Ok, goodbye." He said

Notes from the weekend:
If you are ever in Bridgeport, or somewhere-port, Connecticut, do not go to the McDonald's there. I mean, obviously, dont go to McDonalds' anywhere, but especially avoid this one.
People in bands that no one has heard of can still find ways to act like rock stars.
Being a roadie is the best, when you dont have to do anything.
The word "seriously" has several meanings, all of them arbitrary.

Now, on my steel horse, i ride...

2002-01-25T11:17:00.000-05:00

Cold day for a bike ride today. I'm at work, feeling not very useful. Being here is very refreshing, but a lot of times I feel like the stationary object in the time-lapse photograph. Immobile and gaunt amidst streaks and vectors of light and activity. I dig up information here and there, think about going to get coffee. I really need coffee right now.
I keep having these dreams that are just too close to my actual life. There's supposed to be some kind of demarcation of absurdity that keeps me from mixing up my unconscious thoughts with my real-life experiences, but lately it just aint there.
So we go to philly tonight. And tomorrow we pile in cars and head for Boston. I hope its really cold. And I hope I stay up all night riding trains and laughing and feeling the warmth of connections.
Next week I'll be "running the office", should be interesting. Just answering the phone a lot, trying to sound professional, dealing with all manner of progressive dynamos and cranks. Make sure to check the fax machine.
Being back here has forced me to reacclimate to the onslaught of televised news. The internet can be so sheltering. Yesterday it was Mike Tyson grabbing his crotch and biting someone. Today its the hockey dad who beat another dad to death. Do people honestly care about this shit? When humans attack. We are a species of savages, and CNN is our proving ground. Oh and that runaway bus? awesome, those kids didnt have to go to school. I'll take a thrill ride with a homicidal rifle-toting bus driver over learning about the majesty and courage of the Spanish "conquistadors" any day.

2002-01-24T20:45:00.000-05:00

Watched a movie today that ends with a man getting shot freezeframe christlike crossing a finish line. Someone said, "first the rain, now this." I was soaked for hours.
Fashionably disheveled, or just disheveled?
Today, during "the arbitrary nature of the sign," this kid would not shut up about Saudi Arabia. Some people need to learn that ranting about commercials "just wanting to sell you something" is something the rest of us got over saying maybe 30 years ago.
In the cafeteria, I saw a man who looked like Dick Tracy, then overheard some suited men talking about "genocide" before one of them said "well, I have some business on K Street," which promptly broke up their meal and sent them to the street. there are systems in this city the workings of which are not visible to anyone.
I saw an ad for Blackhawk Down, the movie. I dont know if its going to glamourize the Somalia conflict, but I'd bet it's going to try. The truth is, we fucked that country over and left them to their own faculties, just like we did in Afghanistan. Lets make a movie about that.
Got a letter from Jordan today. I guess it wasn't lost. Some of us have a way with words.
Sorry about the grammar

2002-01-23T09:28:00.000-05:00

today i woke up a half an hour ahead of myself. it may have started last night, when I set my alarm clock for 8:15. "that seems odd," i thought, "i've never set it that early before for class." But i got up today, frantically bathed and dressed and was out the door before Mike, who has class at the same time, had gotten out of bed. I wondered why he was going to class late as I jumped on my bike and tore down the street. Traffic was a couple degrees more cutthroat, some guy tried to run me over in a race to a parking spot; an ambulance chased me for blocks; a beat up van ran the red light on K Street and almost obliterated me. "What is all this traffic?" I thought, continuing on. When I got to the building, there was no one in the lobby, no one crowding into the elevators, getting increasingly annoyed as just-one-more-person tries to curl past the closing tomb doors. On the third floor, no GW bobos milled about the political science department. By the time I got to the room, I was completely prepared for it to be empty. It was. Its Wednesday, it's 9:00, where is everyone? I froze in the hall, fixated on someone sitting at the other end, thinking they must be somehow sharing in my fate. I looked around for confirmation that it was in fact Wednesday, and that it was in fact 9:00. None to be found. What is certain?

My class starts at 9:30, and I'm going there now.

"c'est facile, regarde les autres danser"